The Withered Tree
by TheJadeDragon37
Summary: The Seed, a set of programs that have made VRMMOs all the rage. A few decades have passed and VRMMOs are safer than ever. At least until the newest game was uploaded to the net, now a virus plagues The Seed Nexus trapping players inside. Together ten teens must leap through games and battle the virus infecting the games if they hope to return to their bodies.
1. Chapter 1: ALfheim Online

**(A/N): **A desire to write a video game story was sparked years ago when I first played .Hack on the PS2. Then years later I watched Sword Art Online and felt the same desire. After reading the SAO light novels I finally had come up with an idea for one, thus this fic.

Chapter 1

ALfheim Online

Sitting on a rock looking over the fields of Aincrad's 82nd floor sat a Cait Sith. Her straw colored hair was cut short with her cat ears sticking out of her mop of hair. Bright yellow orbs looked over the area to see what was going on around the girl. A common enough high grade leather chestpiece, with a light brown shirt underneath, covered the girl's torso. Hanging on the side of her leather armor pants was a rare dagger called _Fenrir's Fang_. Swishing back and forth against the stone the girl was sitting on was her tail, the same color as her hair. Perched on her shoulder was the Cait Sith girl's monster, it looked like a dragon with its four legs and wings on its back, however it was covered in feathers rather than scales. It was a monster that was found near the 39th floor simply called _Feathered Dragon_, these monsters came in different colors but possessed most of the same abilities. When she had tamed the little monster she had given it the name Masir and it had stuck with her for more than 43 floors.

Aincrad's 82nd floor was a small flat prairie with little to obstruct the view. That wasn't to say there was no place to hide. There were rocks and the tall grass could easily conceal a player if they laid down. Most of the monsters on the floor were tall and stuck out in the open field letting players see them coming. This floor wasn't without its dangers though, while the majority were out in the open and easily found, the floor's strongest monsters were small enough to hid in the grass and take unwary players by surprise if they didn't have a high enough Searching skill.

"Ciro when's your sister going to be done? I'm bored here and I want to go flying." Flying, the power that was still drawing people to ALfheim Online after all these years. New players had to use a one handed controller to fly at first before they got use to the feeling of their wings. With enough practice a player could imagine their wings and the muscles that went with them, once able to do this they could master what was referred to as voluntary flight.

As she complained the girl stood up and approached the Pooka she was talking to. This Pooka was dressed in green cloth armor, the pant legs had music notes going across them down near his boots. His light blonde hair looked like someone had recently his hair, of course no one had actually done this, it was just the hairstyle he was given upon creating his character and he saw no need to change it. In the Pooka's hand was a harp, _Siren's Wail_, a good weapon for a character who used music as a way to cast magic. Made in the standard U-shape of most harps in the game, _Siren's Wail _was made of metal that molded into the shape of wings. Green was the main color of the harp with the tips of the wings were black. Since a harp wasn't exactly something people used as a weapon, they had the second ability to cause music notes appear that would fly out and hit the target.

"Settle down Iris," Ciro told her in a caring tone that spoke of their familiarity with one another. "Ceres will be done soon enough and then we'll fly back down to the 35th floor."

The last member of the group's party was a Salamander who was off fighting a group of three _Obsidian Giants_, which as their name suggested were really tall humanoid creatures that were as black as the stone they were named after. Each giant had a wooden club with a nail stuck in the end held in their hands. Crimson armor covered the Salamander's body, an ornate chestplate protected her biggest weak points. She had chosen a simple black skirt saying that she rather the freedom of movement it brought over the protection armored leggings could give her. Still, she wasn't a fool and wore knee high plated boots to offer a higher armor rating. Light red hair that bordered on being called pink hung halfway down her back. In her right hand she held an English style longsword called _Radiant Edge _that she had obtained on the last floor from the boss that respawned every few days. Most of the blade was white but around the edges and a tiny line down the middle were gold. A round red shield covered her left arm offering the swordswoman not only more protection but another means of attack. In this group she was the tank and trained herself to be able to take on multiple opponents alone.

Jumping backwards Ceres narrowly avoided the nail of the giant's hammer, her red wings fluttered giving her the extra push she needed to avoid the attack. Charging forward Ceres slashed at the monster's kneecap causing it to kneel down. Raising her shield she was able to stop the fist of another giant cold. Even with her high shield skill some of her hit points vanished from the strength of the attack. Already she had been down in the yellow, below half of her total HP. Ignoring the giant that had attacked her Ceres spun around and slashed again at the kneeling _Obsidian Giant's_ back,taking away the last of its HP, turning it into nothing more than blue polygons as it died.

With two of the monsters left and about half of her HP remaining Ceres moved away from the giants. Once she put enough distance between them she pointed her blade at the giant that had just attacked her. Ceres wasn't one to rely simply on her Sword Skills to get her through a battle, she had trained her fire magic skill up in order to deal with foes at distance. Chanting a quick single strike spell that consisted of only three words, she launched a fireball off the tip of her sword. Expected from a spell that was quick to cast, the damage it inflicted wasn't the greatest against a monster that was on the 82nd floor. Ceres hadn't cast the spell for to inflict damage but rather the impact that came with it, causing the giant to stagger backwards. Red wings sprung to life as Ceres jumped towards the giant still suffering from the effects of the blast. Flying up at a slight angle she brought her sword across the giant's neck severing its head from the body before it too turned into blue polygons and died.

Now only one _Obsidian Giant _remained for Ceres to deal with. While the other two had been weakened over the course of the battle Ceres hadn't gotten a single hit on the third one so it's blue HP bar, floating near its head, was completely full. Taking a ready stance Ceres stared at her last foe waiting to see what it was going to do. If this was a player she was facing they might be intimidated by the fact she had just taken out two of his allies single handedly. Sadly the intelligence of monsters didn't extend this far, most of them had no desire for self-preservation and would keep attacking until they were either defeated or the player got far enough away from them. In keeping with this theme, the last _Obsidian Giant _let out a roar that seemed like a cry for its fallen brethren and ran straight for Ceres. Having faced a good number of this specific monster Ceres had expected the charge attack to come. As the giant swung its club down to squash her she rolled out of its path and towards the giant. As she came up her sword glowed red with the trigger of a Sword Skill, _Rolling Strike, _a move that was meant to be used at the end of a dodge roll. The red trail of the blade came up and sliced along the giant's leg up to the middle of its stomach, 30% of the giant's HP vanished due to the attack.

After using a skill there was a small amount of time where the player couldn't do anything so Ceres had to kneel near the giant waiting for this negative effect to wear off. Her plan had been to get in close and use a skill that would not only cause a good amount of damage but would may also cause a staggering effect. As luck would have it, the secondary stun effect of _Rolling Strike _didn't trigger leaving the giant with ample time to strike back at Ceres. Seeing the monster's club coming from her right Ceres braced for the attack, while in a game she wouldn't truly feel the attack, there would still be a numbing feeling afterwards. However the sounds of a harp playing reached her ears and the giant's club stopped dangerously close to her. Able to once again move Ceres stood up and held her sword in front of her, like she was praying to the blade. Not wanting to use another Sword Skill again Ceres slashed at the confused giant with all of her might, putting as much speed and strength into each attack that she could muster. It took a total of twelve strikes at the monster to reduce its HP to nothing.

"Damnit Ciro," Ceres cursed as the giant disappeared. "I told you to leave things to me this time."

"Like I could sit back and watch you die? I really rather not revive you when I can simply prevent your death, it's a lot cheaper." As one of the Pooka Ciro was able to play music that could disorient monsters, which was precisely what he had done to prevent his twin sister from getting clubbed to death.

Ceres held her sword tightly as she stared at her brother. In ALfheim Online players could attack each other in neutral zones such as the area the trio was currently in. At the moment Ceres was clearly debating whether or not to use this and take out her anger on her brother. It didn't take much to remove a person from the party, in a matter of seconds she could leave it and turn him into a Remain Light.

"Can we go now?" Iris questioned, stepping in between the two. "I need to empty my inventory soon or I won't be able to carry any more loot." The girl's obsession with treasure was great, so much so that her companions often wondered if she shouldn't have been a Spriggan instead, the masters of Illusion Magic and known treasure hunters. When asked why she had picked Cait Sith as her race Iris simply responded saying she liked having ears and a tail.

"Then go to town and sell or store your stuff," Ceres said angrily. "I'm staying here till I can defeat three _Obsidian Giants _ON MY OWN." Pointing her sword in Ciro's direction the Salamander emphasized the last three words making sure her point got across.

Shaking his head Ciro pulled up the purple tinted menu by putting his left index finger and middle finger together and slicing downward. He then unequipped his harp to show that he had no intentions of assisting his sister. "You heard her Iris, she's going to be stubborn and stay here to die fighting monsters she can't handle yet. We might as well head back to town and wait for her to revive." His menu still opened Ciro manipulated it and opened up his item bag. Calling up an item from his inventory, a small bottle with silver energy swirling around, he tossed it over to Ceres. "Holds the song I just used. Try not to die with it, takes a lot of effort to bottle a song." Pookas with high enough skills were able to bottle their performance to be used later. If Ceres uncorked the bottle music would flow forth as the silver energy trickled out.

"I'll try another two sets and if I don't finish them off I'll meet you back at the 35th floor's inn." Ceres placed the bottle in a pouch that dangled at her waist. That pouch contained a few sets of healing potions for quick use.

Four light green wings appeared on Ciro's back and he took to the skies. Iris looked back once at Ceres before a set of yellow wings appeared on her back and she took off after Ciro with her pet monster flying alongside her. All three players partied together quite constantly and had set up an unofficial guild base on the 35th floor. For Ceres and Ciro the reason they played together was somewhat obvious, being brother and sister, twins in fact, they often logged in at the same time. It had taken them a while to figure it out but after a few weeks of playing with Iris the twins found out that they had a real world connection with the girl, she was their younger cousin. The young Cait Sith hadn't even bothered to change her name upon entering the game and her personality didn't change like most people's while in the virtual world making it easier to recognize her.

While Ceres fought solo most of the time, joining a party mostly out of necessity, Ciro and Iris had a large friends list of people they enjoyed playing with. Whenever Ceres insisted on doing something stupid like challenging monsters above her skill level Ciro would feel obligated to go and make sure she didn't die and lose anything to the death penalty. Still, there were times like now where she was too stubborn to let her family help out and insisted on fighting alone. At these times Iris and Ciro would sit back and watch, keeping other monsters at bay so Ceres could accomplish her self-imposed mission.

Flying above the tall grass Ciro and Iris were easily able to avoid any monsters that may have been hiding for them if they had simply walked through the area. Iris, as a Cait Sith, had great eyesight and she had trained her Searching to better detect such monsters so even if they had decided to walk they would have been able to avoid the hidden enemies. Reaching the edge of the floor they were able to see the cloudy sky that surround the floating castle known as Aincrad. Clear blue sky with the sun just now starting to descend, greeted them as they left the castle behind. Looking down from the castle as they headed towards the 32nd floor they were able to catch sight of the vast surface world known as Alfheim. It was separated nine territories, one for each of the fairy races that existed in ALO.

The 35th floor was home to two notable locations. First was the floor's town, Mishe, a medieval European style place, with white buildings and red roofs. The streets are paved with stone, while oil lamps hang from supports and over doorways, and brick is used in some construction. What really made the floor well known was one of its dungeons, the Forest of Wandering. As one would expect of a forest, there were trees everywhere that helped hide the monsters. These hidden monsters weren't the main problem of the dungeon, no, the forest is a labyrinth. Laid out like a chess board there were segments of forest that teleported you to other parts of the forest, spend longer than a minute in one section and you'd be randomly teleported to another section. Teleportation spells and items would only move you to another square of forest rather than back to town. An expensive map was sold in Mishe, which checks what sections your current square is linked, it is the best way to navigate out of the dungeon.

Iris and Ciro were heading to the shopping district of Mishe to empty their inventory of unwanted items. To some, going all the way down to the 35th floor to sell items they had obtained from the 82nd made little sense. When you took into account that one of Ciro's many friends had set up shop on that floor it made all the sense in the world. Ciro's friend was an Imp that had recently taken to appraising items and was counting on his friends to bring him rare items so he could get his skill up faster than he would be able to alone. None of the items the two had collected while training with Ceres had been rare, but still some of them needed appraisal and the Imp was more than fine with taking the weapons and armor off of the their hands. Ciro and Iris would sell the Imp the item at the unappraised price, the Imp would then find out what hidden values the item had, then sell it at a higher price based on the attributes he had discovered.

Flying over the city Iris suddenly stopped and dropped down to one of the red roofs. Something had caught her eye while she had gone over an alleyway. A shimmer that meant a player was hiding themselves. In a neutral town like Mishe, and every other town in Aincrad, players couldn't attack each other randomly, you had to send a duel challenge to fight within city limits. This didn't mean that players couldn't cause each other problems in town. Get enough people and you could form a wall preventing someone from escaping unless they knew a teleportation spell or were willing to use an item. The amount of people able and willing to do those things were few. Iris looked at the glimmer, her Searching skill letting her see past the spell, and could only count four people, all of them Spriggans, just enough to block the alley itself. Any player the tried to ambush could simply take to the sky and be on their merry way.

"What is it Iris?" Ciro quietly asked as he landed next to her. While Ciro had ways to dispel the magic that was hiding the four players, he had no way of detecting them to begin with.

"There's four people hiding themselves and I can't figure out why." If any one of the four that were hidden looked up at the roof Iris was currently perched on they would know that they had been spotted. However, they were too interested in what they were doing to bother to look up. "Not enough for an ambush really but they seem focused on watching the alley."

"Maybe they plan to follow someone out into the field and then attack there." This was a common enough occurrence. Once players sold all their loot they felt safer and wouldn't be on the lookout for thugs and thieves. Walking through town they would attract the attention of players like the ones hiding who would then follow them out into the field. There the group of thugs would attack the player, kill him, and take the player's Yurudo. Not as great as player killing(PKing) for the items themselves but with the money they PKers earned from this they could afford to buy rare items.

"Let's lay a trap for them then," Iris grinned while her tail twitched back and forth with anticipation. "You know, follow after them while they follow after someone else. When they go to attack, we attack them!"

"We first need to get clear up some space in our inventory if we're going PKing," Ciro stated. It wasn't going to do them any good to kill other players if when all was said and done they had nothing to show for their efforts.

"True," Iris blinked as she remembered why she had come to Mishe in the first place. "Ah!" Iris pulled up her menu, "I'll move everything into the party inventory that I don't want and then you can go sell it." While in a party there was a section of the player's inventory that was considered the groups, anyone from the party could take from that section.

"If they start moving I might not reach you in time to help out. Good as you and Masir are together I don't think simple Dagger Skills are going to take down four players."

Most of Iris' magic spells lay in the direction of making her little pet stronger. Her normal fight style was to power up Masir while letting her allies fight, once she buffed up her dragon enough the two would join the fight. If Iris was alone she wouldn't have time to cast the spells needed to make Masir strong enough. Sure she could cast them now but the buffs might not last as long as they needed to and in the middle of the fight Masir would become severely weakened.

"Then you better hurry up," Iris smiled as she closed her menu window, done with putting everything into the shared inventory. With a sigh and a shake of his head Ciro moved back a few steps do he wouldn't reveal Iris' location, and took off into the sky at a frightening pace.

As if on cue a random player, this one a male Sylph, came walking down the alley the second that Ciro was out of sight. Lowering herself to reduce the chance of being spotted Iris kept an eye on the hidden group. Just like Ciro had expected of the group, they followed after the lone Sylph through the alley. Their illusion broke the second they started after her so none of them had high magic power. Spriggans that put the effort into their natural magic could keep an illusion like that going even while moving, at the cost of some extra magic points.

Stealthily the Cait Sith girl moved across the rooftop following after the Spriggans without making a sound. When the Sylph stopped moving, as if to figure out where he was going, Iris would take the time to cast a quick buff on Masir to prepare him for the battle ahead. If she really was going to fight these four alone she was going to want as much help from her pet as possible, even if he weakened mid battle. At these times the Spriggan mage would use an illusion spell to hide his group in case their target turned around to face them.

Reaching the outskirt of the city Iris noticed that they were heading towards the forest. This was the direction of the Forest of Wandering lied in. Iris hoped that the Spriggans didn't have a map of the Forest dungeon, if they didn't they probably wouldn't let the Sylph into the dungeon before they killed him. There was a bit of forest before they would reach the dungeon so there was time for an attack to be launched.

Letting the five people get ahead of her Iris jumped off the roof and onto the ground, her light weight caused nothing more than soft thump that was easily drowned out by the noise of the city as she hit the street. With her right hand on her dagger's hilt Iris bolted towards the forest and hid behind a tree. Using her race's enhanced sight Iris was able to stand further back to reduce her chances of being spotted.

Once under the canopy of trees the world got darker as little light made it through the leaves. There was still enough light that Iris could clearly make out the people in front of her. About six minutes into the forest Iris began to wonder if maybe the Spriggan thugs did have a map and planned to attack the Sylph there, without a map of her own venturing into the forest would cause her to get lost quite easily and there was no guarantee she would be able to follow after the others.

Putting her mind at ease the sounds of battle soon echoed through the forest as the Sylph came under attack. With a quick check on Masir's buffs, Iris drew _Fenrir's Fang _out of its sheath. A full twelve inch double edged blade made of high grade metal caught the remaining light and let off nice shine. Being a Cait Sith Iris was agile, having the racial skill called _Enhanced Speed_ she was able to attack with blinding speed. It was because of this skill that she had chosen to use daggers as her weapon since they specialized in long, quick, combos in order to whittle down the opponents HP. For Iris, her speed was key in fighting since she lacked a weapon that did a lot of damage. All the trees around her would give her lots of places to run and hide between attacks.

With Masir fluttering after her Iris ran towards the sounds of battle. Arriving at the scene Iris found that the Sylph under attack by the Spriggans, each of them lashing out with their swords trying to overwhelm their opponent. All four black clad fairies were using cheap swords but with the combination of them and the speed with which they attacked they were able to quickly bring the Sylph HP's down into the yellow zone. Even four on one the Sylph was able to get a strike or two in, his speed was greater and his weapon of a higher quality so when he did manage to hit he was able to do a fair amount of damage. None of the combatants noticed the approaching Cait Sith.

Taking advantage of her apparent stealth Iris literally flew in and stabbed one of the Spriggans in the back. Since she wasn't noticed Iris was considered _Hidden _by the system for damage calculation, meaning she did a more damage than the attack would have normally produced. Her strong dagger coupled with her speed and stealth attack was able to bring the Spriggan's health down from slighty full straight into the red zone.

"Wow your armor sucks," Iris announced her presence as she watch the HP bar deplete. "I know this is the 35th floor and all but what are you doing running around with armor that weak? The monsters here will eat you up in no time flat." She was truly shocked that her attack had been able to do so much damage.

Before he was able to form a comeback, verbal or physical, Masir appeared in front of the Spriggan and blew out a spray of bubbles. They did very little damage as they burst against the player's face, but they disoriented him enough that Iris was able to hit him again, turning him into a Remain Light.

Now noticing the other player they had to deal with the three remaining Spriggans looked at the Remain Light of their companion. Shock and rage was clear on their faces thanks to the system, hiding your emotions in a VRMMO was much harder than it was in real life as the system would exaggerate them. Seeing his opportunity, the Sylph that was under attack, sliced at a nearby Spriggan. When his health dissipated the Spriggan leapt back into action.

With the battle shifted to two against three, or three against three if you counted Masir, Iris landed and stood ready to see what her enemy was going to do. One Spriggan was fighting against the Sylph while the other two stood there not knowing what to do. The tides had turned and their easy mark had suddenly turned into a real battle. Thieves such as these guys weren't known for their guts, they were known for running away in a tight situation. Fully expecting them to turn around and flee, Iris was shocked when one of them ran over to help their friend. The last one turned his sword to Iris and Masir ready to take on the Cait Sith and her pet.

"You'll regret interrupting our kill," was all the guy said before charging straight for Iris.

What Iris had thought looked like a standard run of the mill sword turned out to be something much better. Intricate runes ran down the length of the sword's silver blade, this wasn't something you could just pick up in any shop, this was something forged by a player with a high Blacksmithing skill. Placing runes on the sword would give it magical properties that an opponent would have to be weary of. Having runes wasn't always a good thing as each rune stood for something very specific. Some players had taken to studying what these runes meant so when faced with a weapon like this they would be able to tell what powers the sword had been instilled with. Iris was not one of these players.

Wings spread wide Iris flew up into the trees in an attempt to use them as cover. Too bad for her that the Spriggan was right on her tail. Landing on a branch Iris started jumping between trees rather than flying, high speed flight ran the risk of taking a branch to the face. Iris' foe was more sure of his flying abilities, moving through the trees with ease. Coming to rest on a branch Iris' eyes widened as she saw the blade coming towards her. Taking the full force of the sword to her side Iris stumbled backwards and fell off of her branch, 40% of her HP bar vanished in that one attack. Automatically her wings appeared as she fell, after hitting three tree limbs on her way down Iris was able to right herself and start flying.

"I'm not done with you just yet!"

Iris flew down to the ground away from the branches. Having to dodge only the trunks of the trees, and the random rock or root, she was able to fly closer to her top speed. Ducking behind one of the many trees Iris tried to hide. She had forgotten something important though, Masir couldn't fly as fast as her. Coming to rest on her shoulder, Masir had lead the Spriggan right to her. Dropping down to her knees was the only thing she could think of to avoid the sword coming straight for her head. Masir had taken to the air and spewed out a wall of bubbles. Having seen the attack before the Spriggan jumped backwards out of their path and far enough away that he'd be able to see Iris coming at him.

Words that Iris didn't understand started flowing out of the Spriggan's mouth. While she didn't know what the words meant, she understood that a spell was being cast. Running to the other side of the tree Iris quickly pulled open her menu and located her potions. Taking out a HP bottle she quickly downed it and waited for the drink to restore her health.

"I really need to memorize that healing spell," Iris muttered to Masir as she got ready to face whatever the Spriggan was going to unleash. Straining her Cait Sith ears Iris tried to listen for the sounds of the spell being cast. Ears perking up Iris started to run as she heard the sounds of fire tearing through the air. Salamanders were the best at Fire Magic but any race could learn the lower spells. Judging by how the fireball followed after her Iris figured that her enemy had cast a mid-level homing spell. Even at her speeds the fireball was catching up to her.

An explosion echoed through the forest as the spell collided with something. Turning to see what had stopped the spell Iris was flabbergasted to see Ceres standing in the path of the fireball, her shield smoking. Coming out from behind her shield Ceres looked in the direction the fireball had come from.

"Ceres what are you doing here?!" Iris called out to her cousin.

"We're still in a party. I saw your health drop." Sure enough Iris looked over at her HP bar located in the upper left of her field of vision. Underneath her bar were another two, both marked with their owner's name, proof they were still in a party. "Now would you mind please telling me where my good for nothing brother's at?"

"Oh, Ciro's at the shop selling all our stuff," Iris answered happy that at the moment that her useless items were being turned into money.

"And you went off without him?" Ceres was appalled that Ciro had let their cousin run off on her own like that. Iris had a habit of getting lost when out on her own and they were very close to a labyrinth.

"You two girls done talking?" From the direction that Iris had fled came the Spriggan, sword in hand ready to fight some more.

"Stay back Iris," with that command Ceres took a step forward and raised her shield ready to defend both herself and Iris from attack. A grin spread on the Spriggan's face as he found another opponent to face off against. "I'm not an idiot," Ceres nodded to the sword in her opponent's hand, "I know that your sword has a magical effect. However, I don't plan on letting you use it."

Kicking off the ground Ceres flew directly at the black clad fairy and brought down her white blade. Blocking it with his sword, he attempted to shove Ceres back with all his might. Between Ceres' strength and the weight of her armor the Spriggan was able to do little more than hold push against her sword.

Coming in from the side Iris took a stab at the Spriggan catching him in shoulder of his sword arm. Momentarily weakened by that attack, he was no longer to hold Ceres at bay and her sword came crashing down on her other shoulder. Between the two attacks they were able to take away enough health to drop him down below 50%. With her shield Ceres slammed Iris away from her.

"I told you to stay back!" She shouted at her Cait Sith party member. Ceres was raging as she looked back down on the Spriggan. Finding him no longer there Ceres started to look around for any trace of him.

"Up here!" Looking up Ceres barely had time to bring her shield up to block the sword. Cracks formed in her shield as the blade collided with it. With another hit from the magical blade Ceres' defense was broken.

"Ceres!" Iris called out uselessly. Shield gone, Ceres stood baffled by the outcome of the battle. Not letting the surprise he had induced go to waste the Spriggan launched a three hit combo on Ceres. Whatever power his sword held didn't work on her armor which stood up to the attacks just fine. Over the initial shock of losing a piece of her equipment Ceres was able to strike back causing the Spriggan to back off.

"Thought you weren't going to let me use my sword's power," the Spriggan taunted.

"What, what was that?" Ceres asked as she had never seen nor heard of an ability that could so easily destroy her shield.

"_Destroy_. Only works against shields and weak armor but it tears through their durability in only a few hits. With how quickly your shield was destroyed I'm guessing you haven't had it repaired recently."

"She did not that long ago but after today she would have needed to do it again." Flying in from behind Iris was Ciro who was holding his harp. A little strumming on the strings and music notes appeared around Ciro before flying straight for the Spriggan who slashed the notes away. "Do you really think you'll be able to fight three on one?"

"Not when he odds are against me." With a growl the Spriggan sheathed his sword on his back and took off. Cere moved to go after him but was stopped by Ciro placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Let me go Ciro, even without my shield I'll be able to take him done. That sword of his won't work on my armor."

"Nuh uh, you depend on that shield too much," Iris pointed out. "Besides, if you would have just let me help you this wouldn't have happened."

"I'm heading to the inn, then logging out" Ceres scowled as she spoke. Red wings appeared and she took off in the direction of Mishe. With a sigh at Ceres' antics Ciro and Iris followed after her.


	2. Chapter 2: Another World

Chapter 2

Another World

Ciro paced across a shiny black surface as he waited for his cousin to appear. People were milling about the place, their avatars spanning multiple genres of games. This was what was known as The Hub, a place that was suspended between the games of the Seed Nexus. With advancements in technology it was simple to create a unique place for gamers to come to so they could switch games without the loss of their items. In the old days if you wanted to take your avatar from one Seed game to another you had to get rid of all your items and your avatar in the game would be erased. Now people could use the Hub to store items from any games, download new games, and Jump into another game. Not only that, the Hub could also be used to store specific data from games, an extra insurance that your character in each game would remain the same once you returned to it.

There were a few rules in the Hub to make things easier. First and foremost, there was no fighting of any sorts. All weapons were bound into the inventory so they couldn't be equipped while in the Hub and there wasn't a magic system implemented so you couldn't cast spells from the game you'd just come from. Any special powers, such as flight, were also prohibited from being used. Like magic, this was enforced by the system simply being missing from the programming of the Hub.

A week ago a new game had launched, Golden Sun: The Adept Wars, and today Ciro, his sister, and his two cousins would be joining the millions of others already playing. They had all four decided that they would wait until they could all get online together before they would play the new game. While they had all agreed to meet up in the Hub twenty minutes ago, Ciro's cousins were still missing.

"Calm down, pacing back and forth isn't going to get them here any faster." Having come out of ALO both Ceres and Ciro still looked like their fairy races from the game. When they Jumped into the new game they would make new avatars fitting of the world.

"Iris might be the type to be late but her sister isn't." Ciro pointed out. A ping, along with a yellow envelope symbol, alerted Ciro to the arrival of an e-mail. Touching the icon Ciro pulled up open the mail. It was from Iris explaining that she had gotten stuck doing some homework and would be arriving shortly. "Seems like she's put off her homework once again."

"Figured as much, and her sister?" Ceres asked wondering why one was preventing the other from coming. Ciro continued reading the e-mail to see if there was any explanation why she wasn't coming.

"Ah, here it is. Seems like her guild called her up, they need a healer to do a raid and she's the only one available at the moment. Says we should head in without her, she'll catch up."

"Sure about that?"

"Yeah, Iris' writing isn't that grammatically correct."

"Oh good, my mail got ta you." Iris, in all her Cait Sith glory, appeared from up behind Ciro. The dirty blonde haired girl's ears were twitching as she looked back and forth between her cousins. "You two look angry."

"You could have sent the mail _before_ you logged on," Ceres told the cat-girl.

Iris shrugged, "I forgot. Who cares, Sis says to go on in without her! I wanna see what this new game's like."

With a sigh the twins agreed with the young girl. They were here for a reason and that was to enjoy themselves, getting annoyed at Iris' forgetfulness was pointless. Having already downloaded the game into their Soul Link, the newest form of the FullDive system, they were ready to start playing right away. Heading over to one of the many terminals the three teens placed their hands on the screen. The device scanned their items in their inventory and placed them into the virtual bank linked with their account. After it was done with that it broke down their avatars into raw data and sent it to the server forGolden Sun.

An array of colors assaulted Ciro as his consciousness was sent into the starting system for the game. Standing on a small platform Ciro looked around and say blue lights flowing upward at an amazing speed. His body still carried some traits of his ALO avatar, while his Pooka clothing, elf ears, and wings were gone, he still retained the physical look of his Pooka avatar for now. This was the same starting system for most games in the Nexus. Here Ciro would be able to determine some factors about his character before starting the game.

Entering his name into the system, games no longer cared if more than one person carried the same name so he was free to keep using Ciro no matter, he moved onto the next step. Personal information like e-mail address and gender were the next part of the set-up, again standard stuff for gaming. Restrictions on gender were still in place, males couldn't play in a female body and vice-versa. This was to prevent any possible psychological damage to the players that might stem from physically being another gender than what the mind said it was.

Next were parts that would actually affect what his character would be like in the world. This game supported only two races, Humans and Beastman. The first was exactly as it implied, a race that was just like humans in every aspect. As for the Beastman, this was a race that looked like various animals that stood up on two legs. There was no stat difference between any of the different looks in the Beastman race so you could pick your animal without worry. However, Ciro wasn't the type that liked playing in an avatar that wasn't like his real body. While appearance was generally set by the system, height and body proportions could be changed upon character creations, Ciro left those alone choosing to use his real body.

Picking Human over Beastman Ciro was then prompted with picking one of the four standard game elements, Earth, Fire, Wind, or Water. Only in this game they didn't carry the same names. Earth was called Venus, Fire turned into Mars, Wind had become Jupiter, and Water was given the name Mercury. It was an easy pick for the former Pooka. Mercury was the more supportive element of the four which was right up Ciro's ally. Once his element was chosen he then had to pick between different classes within the Mercury element. Again picking the support over the damager Ciro's class was dubbed Water Seer.

_You appearance will randomly be set_. An electronic voice sounded through the air and a confirmation window appeared in front of Ciro. If he had the extra cash he could pay to change his appearance by selecting No. Having spent all of his money on getting the game Ciro had no other option than to press the Yes. Once Ciro pressed the Yes the blue lights that had been passing him by started to glow and obscure his vision. His character creation was over with.

Vision coming back to him Ciro found himself standing in a town now. The colors of the world were more vibrant that what he'd seen in ALO, the intensity stood on the line between realism and cartoon. After taking in all his surroundings, a couple of grey stone buildings, Ciro looked himself over to see what had changed about his body. He was wearing a heavy white robe with blue waves at the end of the sleeves with white gloves covering his hands. Feeling something in his right hand Ciro looked to see what it was. A staff was in his hands. Since it was a starting equipment piece it looked like nothing more than a walking stick with a large rounded top good for bashing. It was a mage's weapon for sure.

Taking a look out at the world once again Ciro could see two bars in the upper left of his vision. One was green and had HP written next to it with the numerical value of his health written in the bar. Below his HP bar was a blue one with the letters PP next to it, like the HP bar there were numbers in the blue bar telling Ciro exactly how much PP he had left, not that he knew exactly what PP was for. From the placing of the bar and the fact it was only double digits, while his HP was in triple already, Ciro assumed that it was the world's equivalent of an MP bar.

"Now I need to find Sis and Iris or a mirror to check out what I look like." While Ciro could check out his body he couldn't see his eyes or hair without some help.

"Don't have far to look," the familiar coolness of Ceres' voice called out from behind Ciro.

Turning around he spotted two girls standing side by side. One of them had long brown hair that fell down to her waist and green eyes. Her outfit was a warrior's garb, a black shirt under a one shoulder leather chest piece. A red skirt that fell down to just above her knees and a pair of brown boots decorated her lower half. Sitting at her waist was a simple looking sword. Most importantly, she was a human character.

The other girl was definitely a Beastman. She wasn't fully covered in fur like the avatars Ciro had been presented with but the ears on top of her head, the fangs showing with her smile, and the fluffy red tail, with a white tip, swaying behind her certainly marked her as a Beastman. Looking at her eyes Ciro wasn't sure if it was just a glitch in the game or not but one eye was green and the other was blue. Her hair was the same bright red as her tail and done up in a high ponytail. Her outfit was more like a monk's and she lacked shoes.

It wasn't hard to figure out which of the two girls was his sister. From the way she stood with her arms folded and an annoyed look on her face it was easy to tell that the human was his twin sister which meant that the Beastman was Iris.

"Blonde and gold," Ceres said pointing first to her hair and then her eyes. Nodding in understanding Ciro took it to mean that was the colors he was currently sporting. Not bad really, blonde was his real hair color so he never minded when it was what designated to him by the system, gold eyes were an interesting characteristic though. "We should get moving. Got to figure out what the fighting system is like."

"Shouldn't we first check our inventory? There might be some newbie gift pack." Iris was already fiddling with her menu as she spoke and opened up her empty inventory. While they couldn't see what was in her inventory, the letters would be blurred to anyone but Iris unless she let them see, they could tell it was empty by the fact there were no blurred letters. "They're mean!" She cried when she noticed there was no little gift pack for joining the game.

"We probably have to do some tutorial quests first Iris," Ciro tried to assure her that she would have her gifts soon enough. No matter the game, Iris was a treasure hound and would look for freebies.

Still wondering what the menu was like Ciro held out the index and middle finger of his left hand and swiped down to pull up the menu. The majority of the games that used the Seed package kept to this motion to pull up the menu so that gamers would have some consistency in how things were done. Looking over his menu there was the normal Inventory section followed by the Friends/Guild tab. A Message/Chats system along with a Map and Quest List also appeared on the menu list. At the bottom was the Settings/Other tab. What was odd though was the two tabs under Inventory. One was called Djinn/Summons and the other was Psynergy.

Touching the Djinn/Summons Ciro caused a sub-menu to appear. Three new tabs appeared, Djinn List, Equipped Djinn, and Summon List. Next to the Equipped Djinn there was a blue one. Curious as to why there was a number on this tab Ciro pressed it. A set of twelve slots appeared with eleven of them darkened to show they currently weren't in use. In the top written in blue lettering was the name Fizz. Touching the name brought up a small description of what the thing was.

_Mercury Djinn Fizz: Restores 60% of a single ally's HP.  
Set Bonuses: HP +9, PP +4, Defense +3_

Above the information was the picture of a small blue creature. It had a five pointed crown looking head. Two beady pure yellow eyes were set against a black line. The belly of the creature was a sea green color and it stood on two stubby little feet, no legs or arms to speak of. A red tail extended from the back of the creature that ended in a crescent moon. Presumably it was Fizz.

"Hey guys check your Equipped Djinn," Ciro asked of his family members. Both Iris and Ceres manipulated their menu to get to the section Ciro was in. Unlike Ciro they didn't have a blue one, Iris' was purple whereas Ceres was red. Popping open the list the "Djinn" they had were different than the one that Ciro had. Iris read the description of the thing aloud.

"Jupiter Djinn Gust. Elemental physical attack equal to user's standard physical attack plus 10; chance to double damage. Set Bonuses: HP plus 9, Attack plus 2, Agility plus 2"

"Mine's Mars Djinn Forge. It boosts the party's attack by 25% for one minute. The bonuses are HP plus 10, Attack, Agility, and Luck plus 2" Ceres explained before she closed her menu. "We don't know what it is but it seems to be boosting our stats already so let's make use of it." With her hand resting on her sword Ceres headed off into the town, almost getting lost in the throng of players and NPCs.

"Alright we'll find the first quest and get things going for now." Closing his own menu Ciro headed after his sister with Iris beside him.

Now that he was walking through the town Ciro was able to get a better look at it. At first it had looked like any old town but that was just the section that they had started in. Following the street they came to the merchant district pretty quickly and were overwhelmed with the amount of shops and people. Not only that, there was a large castle visible in the distance.

Heading through the groups of players and NPCs Ceres led them away from the castle. A mini map was present in the upper right of Ciro's vision and he could see symbols representing the various shops as he passed them by. In large letters at the top the name "Vale" was written. Green herbs for item shops, shield for an armor shop, and a sword for weapons. There was also "Inn" written on some of the buildings on the map for easy location. None of the players appeared on the map so the street wasn't covered in moving dots.

Reaching a large wall around the city Ciro noticed that the map ended at the wall, on the other side was the field. The question of if the map would stay with them in the field popped into Ciro's head or if there was some skill or item needed to use the mini map outside of the town.

"Halt," one of the guardsman near the gate leading outside said as the three approached. There was a yellow exclamation point above the guard's head indicating that he was a quest giver. "It's dangerous outside without proper training, have you taken care to practice in the training grounds?"

"No we haven't," Ciro answered before Ceres could say that they have. Unlike his sister he wanted to figure out how to fight before heading out into the field. The guardsman gave the directions to the training grounds which Ceres reluctantly agreed to go to since they weren't even sure if sword skills, or something akin to them, existed in the world.

Following the directions they were given the trio came to a large building set up against the wall. It was the nearest barracks where they would be able to learn the game's fighting skills. Talking with one of the guards standing outside the barracks they formed a party actually, having forgotten to do so earlier, and headed inside. It seemed that inside the barracks was treated a single party dungeon for there was no one but NPCs, the trio, and monsters in cages even though they had seen people walk into the building.

"You must be the new Adepts that were promised us," a female guard said as she approached the group. "As I'm sure you already know you Adepts possess powers beyond what normal humans, or Beastman, do. This power has been given the name Psynergy and comes in the four elements of the world, Venus, Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter. I notice that you're missing a Venus Adept in your party so we'll skip over that for basic training."

As the guard had spoken she had led the group down a hall and into a bare room. There was a small ring in the middle of the room. As they stepped inside the room an unlit torch stand, a miniature windmill, and a jug appeared in the center of the circle. The door behind them slammed shut and a red barrier appeared over it preventing them from leaving before they did whatever it was they needed to do, in other words they wouldn't be leaving until they finished this part of the tutorial.

"Now, will the Mars Adept please step into the ring." Ceres did as the guard requested and the second she did the windmill and jug vanished leaving only the unlit torch. "Please shift your focus to the object before you and raise your either one of your hands in its direction." Again Ceres did as she was told, her right hand was pointed at the torch. "All you have to do is envision a fireball coming from the palm of your hand and striking the torch while calling out Fire."

"Fire," as Ceres called out the name of the spell she was bathed in a white light before a red orb of fire appeared in front of her hand and launched itself towards the stand, setting the torch alight. Once the torch was lit it moved to the back of the room where the flame still flickered.

"Would the Jupiter Adept please move to the ring now." Dashing into the circle Iris waited to see what she would be doing. This time the windmill appeared. "Much like the Mars Adept did, please raise your hand and focus on the object. You will need to think of a small whirlwind appearing before you and moving outwards towards the windmill while calling out Whirlwind."

"Whirlwind!" Iris shouted. Like Ceres had before, Iris had a white light glow around her before the effects of the spell took place. A small whirlwind about half the size of the caster appeared and flew out to the windmill causing the blades to spin. Disappearing from the ring the object appeared next to the torch, blades still spinning.

"Now the Mercury Adept if you would please step into the ring." Passing by Iris as he walked into the ring Ciro knew that the jug would be the item he'd be affecting but he wasn't sure what he'd be doing with it. Sure enough when his foot crossed the line into the ring the brown jug appeared in the center. "You'll need to think of a cloud appearing in front of you and traveling forward while raining. While you carry that image you simply need to call out Douse to activate your power."

"Douse," Ciro said as he imagined the rain cloud moving outwards. While he didn't see it, he was sure that like the others he had glowed white before the raincloud came into existence. The black cloud moved away from him dropping large raindrops along its way, when it reached the jar it hovered in place for a while and filled it up. Ciro's blue PP dropped slightly, he was now missing five points from the bar. It wasn't a lot, his max PP was up at 50 and already he had regained a point. That point might have been regained due to the fact he was in a training ground, tutorials didn't fully reflect the mechanics of the game. Increased healing and power was common enough in tutorials for the sake of getting gamers through them faster.

"Good, what you have all just used is what's called Utility Psynergy. This is Psynergy that may be used outside of battle to affect the world around you. It is best to make friends of different elements so you can have access to all sorts of Utility Psynergy." The guardswoman turned around and touched the door causing the red barrier on it to drop.

Once more following after her the trio moved to another room, this one had cages of monsters inside of it. Again once all of them stepped into the room the door behind them closed on its own and another barrier appeared preventing them from leaving. The guard stood off to the side of the door and began to explain how battles took place. In this world there were no sword skills, the only thing that came close was certain Psynergy spells that were used a physical attacks rather than magical ones. After an explanation of how to use their Psynergy in battle, it was the exact same as using Utility Psynergy only instead of focusing on an object they'd have to focus on a monster. Psynergy could be prevented by the Adept's concentration being broken and if they were hit hard enough while the spell took form, when the glowed white.

As it stood right now, each of them only knew three Psynergy spells. Ciro knew the Douse Psynergy which doubled as Utility and Attack, one called Ply which was a single target heal, and Cure Poison which was self-explanatory. Iris knew her Whirlwind spell, one called Slash, and another called Boon which was a weak single target heal. For Ceres who had chosen Mars as her element had the Fire she'd used in the other room along with Guard, a spell that raised one person's Defense stat. Her last Psynergy spell was Flare another attack type.

The caged on the monster opened letting out four oversized rats that stood on their hind legs, they were aptly named _Rat_. Each of the _Rats_ had on armor actually, a small piece covered part of their head going up to their ears. Their back was completely covered and it extended to the top of their legs. At the end of their tails was a mace like piece that would probably serve as their weapon. They were all level three, each of them had a red crystal cursor above their heads. As Ciro directed his attention from one to the other the crystal above them would grow in size to show which he was currently focused on and where his Psynergy would go when cast. Taking out their weapons the trio got ready for their first fight in the new world.

"Looks like I need to buy a shield," Ceres said as she held only a sword in her hands. No one was worried about the current fight, it was only a tutorial match, they were pretty much guaranteed to win the battle.

Holding his staff ready to intercept any attacks that came his way Ciro spared a glance over at Iris to see what she was using as a weapon. She had nothing in her hands at all, it looked like she was fighting without a weapon of any sorts. If her class really did reflect a monk style than it was possible that she wasn't given a starting weapon, monk style fighters could be strong even without a weapon.

As the battle started Ciro noticed something new above and below his HP bar. Above his HP bar were four color circles with numbers written next to them. The first one was a gold color with the number 78 next to it. It was followed by a red one with 77, next was blue at 104, and the last one was purple with 76. Below his PP bar the same circles were there, in the same order, but they all had a zero. These numbers hadn't been explained to them before the start of the battle so Ciro ignored them for now, they would surely be explained later on.

With a party of three the battle was pretty simply done. Ceres instantly used her Guard to boost her Defense stat and did what she could to keep the attention of the monsters on her. As he watched Iris fight Ciro realized why she didn't have a weapon at the moment, she was able to use her Beastman claws to do damage. Since he had a staff and his Douse Psynergy was such a low costing spell Ciro figured he'd take the route of caster for the battle and stood back. His Douse attack was different than it had been when he used it to fill the jug. Large spheres of water fell down from the sky and broke on impact drenching those they hit in water. There was a large amount of these giant raindrops near the monster Ciro was targeting and less the farther away from it. It was an area of effect spell that had high damage near the center and low damage near the edge.

Like they had expected the fight was easy enough. Not a one of them had taken enough damage that they had even needed to be healed, the system was giving them high regenerative powers for now. The four monsters hadn't dropped any loot but had given them gold and experience points. Golden Sun was one of the VRMMOs that didn't rely on skills but rather gave people levels to show their progress in the game.

-o-O-o-

"That was pointless," Ceres sighed as they exited the building having completed the tutorial.

"We got a level up from it and I wouldn't have known how to use our Psynergy if it wasn't for that," Ciro rebutted. "Learning about the Djinn and Summon system was also useful. Besides we also got some gold out of it, you can buy your shield for sure now."

Djinn, creatures composed of raw Psynergy that were aligned with one of the four elements. They boosted an Adept's stats when equipped and could be used in battle to unleash certain effects. Not only that but the types of Djinn you equipped could change your class, the tutorial had given them extra Djinn to showcase this fact. When their class changed not only did their stats change but the Psynergy they knew would be altered to reflect the elements they had. No matter what class Ciro had become though the Douse spell was always listed in his Utility Psynergy. An equipped Djinn was considered "Set". When used in battle it would turn to "Standby" where you couldn't use the effect again unless you turned the Djinn back to Set, after a small cooldown. When Ciro had used Fizz he noticed that the blue circle under his PP Bar had turned from zero to one to reflect how many Djinn of that element he had on Standby. Djinn on Standby didn't boost a person's stats but they could be used for something else.

Summoning wasn't limited to one class in this game, everyone could do it. This is what a Djinn on Standby could be used for. It was the strongest ability an Adept had at their disposal. By using certain Djinn they could summon powerful creatures to unleash a single powerful attack. When the summon was done the caster would have their Elemental Power raised, these were the numbers that appeared above the HP bar in battle. Elemental Power was what determined how strong the summon was and how powerful Psynergy could be. The downside to summoning was that there was a large cooldown on it that affected the whole party. Should Ciro use the Mercury summon, the lowest Mercury based summon, the party wouldn't be able to use another summon for two minutes. The stronger the summon the longer the cooldown.

"Now I want to go and see if there are any nearby Djinn," Iris was looking at the roofs of the nearby buildings to see if there were any elementals in hiding. The location of Djinn didn't change so once it was found news about it would spread and people would flock to collect it. In total there was said to be 120 Djinn, 30 of each element, that could be found in towns, out in the field, or in dungeons.

"I doubt they'll put one so close to the tutorial area." Walking ahead Ceres was heading for the merchant district again, she wanted a shield.

Reaching an armor shop, without running into any hidden Djinn, they browsed through the NPC's shop. Armor was separated into the equipment slots of the character; body, head, hands, legs, feet, and two accessories. There was also main hand and off hand, shields were considered an offhand item. Weapons like staves though required two hands to use and so the offhand slot was blacked out to show that it couldn't be used.

Ceres picked up the cheapest shield she could get to serve until she was able to either find or buy a stronger one. For Ceres she liked having a fully equipped character first and then focused on upgrading her equipment. So not only did she grab a shield for herself she bought a pair of legging and helmet, the shop didn't sell any armor for hands or feet. Ciro used all of his gold to buy two rings, one that increased his PP regain outside of battle and another that increase his Mercury Power by five. The only one that didn't buy anything was Iris who was currently fine with her starting equipment, she was more a player that used dropped items instead of bought items. All of her gold would go towards potions and auctions for rare or unique items.

"Now that we've wasted a good hour of doing nothing, can we head out to the field and see what this world is like?" Closing her equipment window Ceres moved the arm her shield had appeared on to get a feel for the weight of the item.

"Yes," Ciro and Iris chorused.

**(A/N):** This game world is only BASED on Golden Sun. Yes it uses a lot of the game's features but as you've just read, I'll be explaining what you all need know.


	3. Chapter 3: Withered

**(A/N): **Still riding the hype! That's what has caused this chapter to be written and posted so close to the last one. This time we actually get some plot rather than a new game. If you haven't read the Light Novels of SAO then you'll get to learn some stuff about the SAO world that happens in the last four books.

Chapter 3

Withered

With a swing of her sword Ceres cut down another _Rat Warrior_ cutting it in half and turning it into polygons before vanishing. They were out in an open field with a clear blue sky hanging above them. When they looked at the grass they could see each and every blade moving with the gentle wind that was blowing. As they had been fighting the grass had been trampled and pressed down and this was actually shown. There were even scorch marks where Ceres had used her fire attacks. They had experienced this in a previous battle, once the fighting was done the changes to the area would be reset.

These _Rat Warriors_ looked similar to the _Rats _they had faced before in the barracks but these ones had a sword and shield rather than a mace tail. A flashing shield icon under the Standby Djinn let Ceres know that her Guard Psynergy was about to run out and her defense would fall. Blocking an attack with her shield Ceres jumped back and pointed her sword at the _Rat Warrior_.

"Flare," she said as she pictured a line of fire appearing in front of the monster. A quick flash of white emitted from Ceres as the spell charged, since Flare was a low level spell the charge time was nonexistent. As the flames appeared the _Rat Warrior_ ran into them not knowing the attack was coming. Caught in the Flare attack the _Rat Warrior_ had its remaining health depleted.

"And that wraps up the quest." Holding a hand up Ciro used his Ply Psynergy to cause a tiny fairy to appear next to Ceres and heal her. "Shall we head back now?"

Their quest had been given to them by the guard that had originally sent them to the training grounds. Apparently he'd only give off the quest after completing the tutorial so it was good that they had bothered to go through it, though Ceres didn't want to admit it. According to the quest the _Rat Warriors_ were harassing anyone without guards that left the town so they needed to thin out the numbers. The guards couldn't do it because they couldn't leave their posts to deal with something that was affecting only a small portion of the people.

"I guess. The quest reward looked like it'd be useful for now." Even though it was a starting quest the reward had seemed abnormally high. They would be getting a special weapon that was befitting of their current class. Since they still each only had one Djinn at the moment this meant they'd be getting a weapon that went with their starting class.

"Isn't that the whole point of _doing_ a quest?" Iris asked aloud. "I mean what's the point of doing a quest if you aren't going for the reward?"

"Yes but if we find another Djinn we can change our class and possibly affect the reward. We need to figure out if we wait until then to turn the quest in or if we do it now to give us a better weapon to explore." Not sure how he felt about using a staff after so long of using a harp Ciro wanted to see what other weapons were out there that his class could use. He doubted there were any musical instruments out there but he rather have a bladed weapon if possible.

"Oh." Iris' eyes went wide as she tried to figure out if treasure later was better than treasure now. "But… reward." Her red ears drooping Ciro wondered if she was aware they did that when or if was just something the system did in response to the emotion the person was feeling. "Beside, Sis should be in the game by now."

When they had hit half the quota for the _Rat Warrior_ slaying quest they had gotten a message from their missing family member. She was done helping out her guild and was currently heading to the Hub to Jump on over to Golden Sun and meet up with everyone. At the bottom of her message she had told them she'd send them another once she'd made her character and arrived in the game actually. Given how long it had taken them to hunt down the remaining _Rat Warriors_, enough time had passed by that she really should have already joined by now.

On their way back towards the town Iris got another message saying that her sister was waiting by the gate. Spurred on by meeting up with her older sister Iris started to run back to town leaving Ciro and Ceres no choice but to pick up speed to follow after her. After tripping on his robes a few times Ciro managed to get the hang of running in the bulky clothing.

Reaching the gate the trio looked around to see if there was anyone standing off alone. It was going to be slightly challenging to find one person when they had no idea what she looked like or what her name was. All they could hope for was that she would be able to recognize them as she knew what their names were. There was someone standing outside the wall watching people go through the gate.

The person standing off to the side was a female and a Beastman from the looks of things. Like Iris though she wasn't covered in fur, in fact she looked very much like a human if it wasn't for the large white wings on her back. Silver hair ran down her back and between her wings. Her purple eyes sat behind a pair of white rimmed glasses which served to slightly magnify her eyes. A dark teal sleeveless knee length dress covered the girl, the collar went all the way up to her neck making sure that her well-endowed chest was fully covered. She had on a pair of matching heels and white thigh high socks. White elbow length gloves covered her pale arms.

"Wie geht es dir?" The girl smiled as she spoke to the approaching trio.

"Sister!" Iris hugged the girl without a second thought. "Speak English please. You know I don't understand German. Oh, and what's your name here? Can't see it since you're not in my party."

"Sorry Iris, most of my guild in HnH speaks German. You should know my name by now Iris, I keep it the same after all. But how'd you know it was me?"

"Took a guess," a toothy grin graced Iris' face.

"We'll be here forever if she has to try and remember," Ciro chuckled as he patted his cousin on the head. "Glad you could make it Fay."

"Fay and I don't play together that often Ciro," Iris pouted trying to make an excuse for why she wouldn't remember Fay's character's name. "But Sis, I didn't see any bird Beastman race when I went through, how'd you get wings?"

"I've been wondering about that too," Fay commented as she looked over her shoulder at the offending part of her avatar. "I could have sworn I picked the Human race when creating my character. What really gets me though is that this looks exactly like my HnH avatar."

"Maybe it's a glitch in the system? Game's only a week old there are bound to be a few bugs in it." Ciro tried to reason.

Ceres shook her head in disagreement with her brother. "No, something this big should have been worked out in the beta. Fayette what element did you chose when you started?"

"Went with a Jupiter mage style. Why?" Not sure where the brunette girl was going with this everyone waited to see what was going through Ceres' mind.

"Alright then we should see if you have the powers of the world before we contact a Game Master. Anything we can tell them will only help after all." Instructing Fay in how to use the Utility Psynergy and watched as she was able to conjure the whirlwind just like Iris had been able to. "Okay so you seem to be able to use the game's magic system. Looks like it's just the avatar that has something wrong with it."

"I'll just file a bug report then." Calling up the menu Fay went to the Settings section where players could report their problems without having to call for a GM. "If I can still play then this glitch shouldn't really cause too much trouble. More than likely it'll probably be fixed by the time we log on again."

"Personally I'd want it checked out but if you feel like you're up for playing still then go ahead." It was no skin off Ceres' back whether or not Fay wanted to keep playing as she was.

Everyone stood there thinking for a bit about what was the best course of action. While they had checked that Psynergy was working, they weren't sure that everything else was functioning properly. It wouldn't do any good if there were other problems that arose during their session. A seemingly harmless glitch could easily be a precursor to something more dangerous. With all the safety features of the Soul Link they didn't fear anything happening to their bodies or minds, if there was even a hint of danger to the user the Soul Link would shut down to protect the person. What was in danger was all the data that Fay had saved in the memory of the device.

There was a simple way to bypass the Hub if you wanted to quickly go from one game to the other. In the Settings section of the menu there was the Hub/Jump button. If you selected the Jump option all the items in your current inventory would be saved to the internal memory of the Soul Link until you turned it off. This way if you planned on playing for a long time between multiple games you could go back and forth without making a stop at the Hub each time you wanted to change games. Of course you just had to remember to stop by the Hub before logging off for the day so that your items could be safely stored. People tended to forget that fact and more than a few special items have been erased over the years, which is why it was always better to head to the Hub before switching.

With a memory much better than her sister's Fay had used the Jump feature to come to Golden Sun rather than passing through the Hub. As it stood, her items from the previous game were potentially in danger of being deleted if the bug causing her appearance to stay the same was more dangerous than they were currently judging it to be.

"Well," a sigh left Fay's lips before she continued, "I haven't really done anything in here so I'm fine with heading to another game for now. ALO sounds like a good one, haven't been there in a while either."

"Probably for the best. We'll turn in this quest, before someone explodes, then head back to ALO." With a wry smile Ceres headed off towards the guard to turn in the quest she'd completed. After the trio had gotten their new weapons from the guard, just a stronger version of what they were already using and for Iris a pair of clawed gloves, they all used the Jump feature to go back to ALO. There was little fear of Iris forgetting to deposit her items later with three people there to remind her.

Being reconfigured in Alfheim's neutral city, Alne, all four of them immediately noticed something wrong. White feathery angel like wings were still protruding from Fay's back. Her avatar was the exact same that it had been when she'd entered Golden Sun, there wasn't even a trace of the Undine style avatar that Fay had in ALO. All four of them were worried about what was going on and their fears only escalated when they noticed that Ceres wasn't in her Salamander avatar either. Her pink-red hair was the same dark chocolate brown that her Golden Sun avatar had and she was missing her Salamander armor which should have returned to her during the Jump.

What stood out more than the fact that she was stuck in her Golden Sun body was the new addition that had appeared on it. On the back of her right hand was what looked to be a tattoo. Its shape was that of a tree with all the leaves missing from the branches. The top of the bare branches reached Ceres' knuckles while the roots grew down to just past her wrist. All of it was a dark green color, like the color of pine needles at night.

Not only was Ceres still in her Golden Sun body, Ciro and Iris were both stuck in the avatars they had gotten over in the other game. That same dark green tattoo was on the back of Iris' hand. Fay and Ciro removed their gloves, Fay's elbow length one taking a bit more time to take off than the simple glove Ciro had on. Holding up their hands for the others to see they showed off the same green tree on the back of their hands.

"What's going on?" Asking the question that was on all of their minds Iris looked at the older members of the group expectantly.

"I… never got a tattoo like this in HnH," Fay whispered as she looked at the marking.

"I don't remember them being on us in Golden Sun either." Putting his glove back on Ciro pulled up the menu.

"What are you doing Ciro?" Wondering what her twin was doing, Ceres moved over to stand next to him even though she knew that she wouldn't be able to see what was on the screen.

"Calling a GM, something's clearly wrong with us."

"Father would be a better option. The GMs are only going to be versed in the game's problems. This is going to be above their pay grade." Her normal haughty attitude was gone as Ceres was more worried about what was going on than anything else. Right now figuring out the problem was more important than trying to be the group's leader. It wasn't a side of Ceres that appeared very often.

"You right," Ciro agreed, "Dad's knows more about general gaming programs than a GM."

A simple program existed that let gamers call a phone in the real world. This was done so that communication between the two worlds wouldn't cause problems. Mainly used for parents to talk with their kids while they played their games it had various other purposes that had turned the feature into a staple for VRMMOs. Some people used the feature to trade phone numbers in game so they could converse with friends even if they were offline. There had yet to be a discovered limit to the amount of numbers that could be stored. Situated in the same section of the menu as the GM call, Ciro continued operating the menu to call his home's phone.

"Are you sure Uncle Sol will know what to do?" Iris questioned while they waited for someone on the other end of the line to pick. "I'm all for calling him but will he really be able to help us?"

"I'm sure Father will have some idea as to what's going on." With a soft smile Ceres tried to assure her younger cousin. What she said next though was anything but helpful. "Provided Mother's home to get him to pick up the phone."

"Let's head to an inn so we don't attract attention to ourselves," Fay suggested as they all noticed that people who were passing them by were stopping to check out what was going on. Having four avatars that weren't of the game was bound to turn some heads and raise a few questions.

"Agreed." The others said before heading to find the nearest inn.

-o-O-o-

Sitting in front of three different monitors a guy in his late thirties typed away at a keyboard, lines of nonsense code flowing across the middle computer screen. Sunlight tried to break through the curtains hanging over the window but the thick material was able to keep out most of the light. What light there was in the room came from the three monitors and a small desk lamp.

In the background the sounds of a telephone ringing could be heard. Ignoring the noise this man with messy dark brown hair concentrated on the work in front of him. His scrawny fingers darted over the keyboard at a speed that would make most average people wonder if he was really typing or just pressing random keys. As he sat in his large cushioned chair his brain acknowledged that the phone had stopped ringing but he showed no signs of slowing to see if someone had actually picked it up or if the person had simply hung up already.

"Sol!" The loud commanding voice of his wife called out to him. Finishing up one more line of code Sol stopped typing long enough to hear what Luna had to say. "It's Camdin, he's saying they're having some problems with their game and want your opinion on the matter."

Sighing Sol got up out of his chair and stretched his whole body. Regarded as one of the more brilliant minds of the gaming era Sol was allowed to work from home. He was nowhere near the genius that had been Kayaba Akihiko who created the FullDive system over 70 years ago, but he was still above average when it came to intellect. The lanky computer nerd headed out of his domain and out into the well-lit hall of the house he shared with his wife and two kids.

Standing next to the phone was Luna, a woman with a full figure and long jet black hair. She had been a beauty as a teenager and over the years she'd only grown more beautiful, according to Sol. If anyone looked at these two standing next to each other it'd be like seeing the captain of the girl's tennis team standing next to the head of the computer geeks. Taking the phone from his wife Sol answered:

"What seems to be the problem Camdin?" He asked his son.

"Good, Mom was able to get you." Sol would have been annoyed with his son sounding so genuinely relieved if he didn't know himself better. There had been more than a few times over the years that Sol hadn't picked up the phone or even heard Luna call out to him because he'd been so engrossed in his work. "Can you get to your computer? There's something wrong with our avatars and Cardea thinks that it's above a GM's skill level."

"Eloise and Iris are there with you right?" Walking back to the computer room Sol wanted to learn what he could from over the phone first. If what Camdin was saying was true and their problem was above the knowledge of a Game Master than the problem would more reside with the individual than the system itself. The Game Masters were meant to deal with bugs in the game's system, not the bugs of the Soul Link. "Yeah they're here. Why?"

"Hmm. Was going to have them get ahold of your aunts but no need to cause Rin to needlessly worry." Sitting back in his chair Sol plugged a cord from the computer's tower into the phone. A small window appeared on the left most monitor to show that the phone was connected to the computer allowing Sol to use both hands easily for typing.

"Yeah," Camdin agreed.

"Can you put it on speaker? Want to hear everyone if I can." Sol instructed his son while he minimizes all the windows that he had been using earlier. Popping up another window Sol started to sift through the information that was coming across the screen. While the Soul Links weren't hooked up to anything other than a wall socket for power they still had to use the house's internet to access the games and Sol was able to use that signal to connect his computer to the devices of his kids. There was protection on the devices to prevent just anyone from doing this, but with the right fifteen digit access code composed of numbers, letters, and symbols Sol was able to bring up the status of Camdin and Cardea's FullDive systems.

"He already did that Father," Cardea's voice came across the speakers of the computer.

"Uncle Sol are you sure we shouldn't contact our parents?" Eloise asked.

"Yeah, Mother should be able to help out. Though I can understand about you not wanting to worry Mom." Iris sounded a little worried which really got Sol to wondering just what was happening on the other side of the line.

"I don't know if my sister will really be of help until I know what's going on. Cardea, what's the problem?" Asking the more business-like of his two twin kids Sol hoped to get a faster answer.

"Well it started when Eloise came to the new game, she was still in her Heaven and Hell avatar. I had her test to see if she was able to use the game's unique features and nothing seemed amiss. Figuring that it was just a bug in the new game she submitted a report and we Jumped back to ALO so we could play together. Problem is that Iris, Camdin, and I are now stuck in are GS avatars and Eloise is still in her HnH avatar. Not only that but these weird tattoos have appeared on the backs of our hands."

"I see, does seem like something that's wrong with the FullDive rather than the game if it's happening to you in multiple games. Still, a GM might know enough to be of help." Scratching the back of his head Sol tried to figure out what was going on. "Regardless you have me on the line now and I have your data pulled up. I'm checking for any irregularities but so far everything seems to be fine. You guys will probably have to cut your session short and the problem will probably fix itself over night."

"But I wanted to play with everyone," Iris half whined. While she did indeed want to play together with both her cousins and her sister, she was old enough to understand that what was happening was a definite problem.

"That's why I'm checking everything over first," Sol assured his niece. "I know how hard it is for the four of you to get together like this." With all the club activities that Iris did she had the hardest time of the four getting online to play with the others and even when she was online it wasn't every day that Ceres wanted to play with her. Stars had to align for the kids to be able to be online together.

Silence permeated the air as the information coming from the Soul Links of his kids flowed past Sol's eyes. Not only was Sol going over the data, the same program that was displaying it all was double checking for any missing or mixed up pieces. By the time he'd gotten through a third of the information Sol spotted what was causing the problem. It wasn't something that should have been possible. Stopping the flow of information Sol did a looked again to make sure that what he was seeing was indeed correct.

The safety features of the Soul Link had been removed.

When a person connected to the Soul Link experience playing a game the device is actually taking information from the computer world and linking it directly to the human's consciousness, their soul in other words. Near 60 years ago a group called Rath had designed a machine called the Soul Translator in an attempt to create a true AI, one that had the same capacity for learning as humans did. They had succeeded in doing so, the more expensive VRMMOs even had AIs that were created this way. It was done by the machine reading a specific particle called an "Evanescent Photon" that exists in the microtubules of a nerve cell. A collection of these particles are called a "Quantum Field" which Rath had dubbed a "Fluctuating Light" or "Fluctlight" for short.

Even now the world had only started perfecting the technology behind this for commercial use, thus the Soul Link was born. While the Soul Translator was a large machine its successor was a simple headset much like the NerveGear of old. By manipulating a person's short term memory via their Fluctlight, a more "real" experience could be felt than what the NerveGear and AmuSphere had been able to. This was the driving force behind the Soul Link. Ever since the Sword Art Online incident the safety features of the devices had always been paramount. The mass amounts of locks on what the Soul Link could write into a person's mind were astronomical. What was even more dangerous was the potential for the Soul Link to completely erase a person's memory, making them nothing more than an empty shell.

Right now, all the safety locks that had been protecting Cardea and Camdin had been removed. Knowing now where the problem lied, Sol's hands flew across the keyboard to see if he could reinstate these missing features. Each time he tried to correct the problem the lines of code would be rejected, Sol knew now that he was dealing with a virus. Something had been able to embed itself into the Soul Link's main programming and prevent the simple fixes that Sol was able to do. He was going to need help.

"Iris contact you Mother NOW," Sol couldn't prevent the worry from leaking into his voice.

"O-o-okay," she stammered at the sudden outburst from her uncle.

"Mika Fuco, hacker extraordinaire at your service." The confident voice of Sol's older sister came through the speakers.

"Mother," Iris sighed. There was a caller ID for a reason after all.

"Sorry Squirt, what up?" Mika asked in a carefree tone.

"Mika," Sol spoke getting her attention. "I'm sending you a file that'll explain what's going on." A click of the mouse and the e-mail was sent to his sister.

"Eloise do Mother a favor and cover your sister's ears for a second." After a few seconds to give her enough time Mika launched into a string of swears that any sailor would be proud of. "This thing got my girls'?"

"I'm thinking so and I can't seem to repair the damage. It's a virus pure and simple but it's nothing like I've seen before. There's some protection on it that's preventing me from restoring the damaged section. Hoping that you'll be able to disable it." While so was great at fixing programs and creating new ones, getting past existing ones was beyond his skill set. Mika on the other hand made a living off hacking into systems, getting past their firewalls and every other safety feature they had installed to prevent an outside source from attacking them cyberly. Of course it was all on the up and up, she was paid upfront by companies and if she managed to get past them she'd get a rather large bonus.

"Watch and learn little brother," Mika's confidence was clear in her tone and the rapid clacking of keys could be heard through the phone. "Oh god damnit that's clever. Give me a sec. WHAT THE?! Oh hell no, you did not just do that. Sol, this virus is hacking back, it's trying to disable my connection to the Soul Links."

"Can you stop it?"

"Honestly? Not sure. The more I try to do the more complex the attacks get. At this rate my own security system won't be able to stop them." Serious as the plague, the sounds of Mika typing away could still be heard as she attempted to gain control of the system.

"Mother," Eloise whispered worried about what was going on outside in the real world.

"Father, if we log out will that help matters?" It seemed like an obvious thing to Cardea but she was nowhere near as versed in computers as her father and aunt.

"Well," Sol hesitated debating if what he was about to say was really needed. At the moment things weren't becoming better and it was looking like the kids would need to know everything that had happened to them. "It'd be great Cardea but there's a problem. The safety features have been disabled and it seems that the log out function was closely linked to that. As it stands there's log out. In fact," taking a deep breath Sol tried to calm himself, "it looks like the Soul Link has fully uploaded your consciousness to the net rather than simply adding memories. The safety programs were supposed to prevent this from happening and I have the feeling whoever made this virus knew full well what they were doing."

"You're father's right," Mika added in. There was no longer the sound of her rapid typing. "I think they disabled the safety features for the express purpose of uploading your consciousness. While I can't DO ANYTHING to the virus, I can still see what it's affecting and the route it took to do so. From the looks of things it attacked you guys when you Jumped between games."

"That'd explain why we didn't have the tattoo in Golden Sun," Camdin reasoned. "We used the Hub which takes a different path than Jumping. When Eloise Jumped to Golden Sun she was infected, when we all came back to ALO we got infected."

"Really Camdin, I didn't get that from Father's explanation." Processing the information she had just been given Cardea was understandably a little on edge. Her dad had just told her that she was stuck in a virtual world.

"No fighting you two. You're aunt and I will head to Rath to figure out if they can do anything about this. The Soul Link is their device and they might have a better understanding of what's going on than we do." Already Sol was transferring the raw data onto a flash drive to show to the people at Rath.

"Sol stay here," Mika instructed. "You may not be able to beat the virus but at least you can study what it's doing."

"Alright, I'll see if there's any other corrupted parts. I doubt it though. This seems to have had a specific function of locking them into the VRs."

"Are we in any danger?" Iris questioned.

"You shouldn't be Squirt," Mika told her youngest in a soothing tone. "So far there doesn't seem to be anything to it other than stopping you guys from leaving."

"Any idea why our avatars aren't switching?" It may sound like an odd question but Iris was a curious mind and wanted to know what was going on.

"Best guess is that when it entered you guess it corrupted the avatar's appearance data. I don't think it was on purpose, more a side effect of the initial entering. That's why Eloise still had the right powers despite having the wrong look. Your base look will stay the same but you should still be able to change clothes and items without problems." In his most reassuring tone Sol answered his niece's questions, something he was sued to doing. Leaning back in his chair Sol took a deep breath before he went back to work at the problem that now presented itself.

"You heard you're uncle. You guys are going to be fine, just go and have some fun. Slay monsters, save a princess, and find treasure while we get this all sorted out."

"We'll contact you guys when we have something. I love you and I'll make sure that you get back soon." Already Sol was dreading the large amount of typing he was going to have to do that would ultimately do nothing to help his kids.

"I love you too Father," Camdin and Cardea said in unison.

"Alright Squirt take care. Eloise make sure she doesn't get into any trouble. I love you both and wish me luck for when I have to tell your mom about this."

"Love you too. Please don't make Mom worry too much," Eloise replied.

"I love you Mother!" Iris called out.

Both Sol and Mika cut the connection with their kids but kept a line open to each other. They had to discuss something before Mika left to go and see the people at the nearby Rath headquarters.

"You saw it too didn't you?" Sol asked knowing the answer already.

"Yeah," the solemn voice of Mika answered. "How do we tell them that? _Can _we tell them?"

"Hopefully we won't have to. We have to trust that Rath is able to do something about this."

"Right, I'll get going then. Sol… keep looking, we have to get them back."

"I know Mika. I know."

**Date of infection  
April 20, 2095**

* * *

**Character Corner:**

Avatar's Name: Ceres  
Real Name: Cardea  
Age: 16  
ALfhiem Online- Salamander  
Golden Sun: The Adept Wars- Mars Adept

Avatar's Name: Ciro  
Real Name: Camdin  
Age: 16  
ALfhiem Online- Pooka  
Golden Sun: The Adept Wars- Mercury Adept

Avatar's Name: Iris  
Real Name: Iris  
Age: 15  
ALfhiem Online- Cait Sith  
Golden Sun: The Adept Wars- Jupiter Adept

Avatar's Name: Fayette "Fay"  
Real Name: Eloise  
Age: 17  
ALfhiem Online- Undine  
Golden Sun: The Adept Wars- Jupiter Adept


	4. Chapter 4: The Withered Tree Virus

**(A/N): **A heads up to you readers. Since I wasn't exactly thinking when I named Iris' pet dragon, its name was dangerously close to her sister's name. I have since gone back and changed the pet's name to prevent confusion between the human girl Fay and the dragon Fayt. From here on out the dragon is named Masir.

Chapter 4

The Withered Tree Virus

"I can't believe it," Mika said over the phone. She had just gotten back from talking with the people at Rath and so she'd called up her brother to let him know what was going on.

"They don't know anything?" Sol asked expecting the worst.

"Actually they were thankful for it being brought to their attention." Some of Mika's normal pep had returned to her voice compared to earlier when she had left her home. "Never would have expected that from a worldwide company. Even when large corporations hire me they're rarely are that polite."

"Okay, but did they give us anything to help the kids with?" Not being able to do anything would drive Sol up the walls. Knowing that his own kids and his sister's daughters were stuck in a virtual world and not able to do something about it would be aggravating.

"No. We are to submit anything more that we may find out, they gave me an e-mail address to use, and wait for them to fix the problem." Sol could hear it in his sister's voice, there was something more to the story than what she was currently saying. "But… I can't sit with that any more than you can and let them know as much. Long story short, we're expected to report to Rath HQ tomorrow morning to work with them. Luckily the name Mika Fuco carries some weight."

"Just what you needed, an ego boost," Sol deadpanned as he started to put everything he'd need onto a flash drive. He didn't trust the computers at a corporation to have all the programs that he wanted. With any luck they'd have a one that was better suited to scanning the data and could work faster, but Sol had spent years designing software that he knew could be of use now, his own personal computer just ran it a little slower than he liked.

"Know you love me Brother." A light laughter could be heard over the phone. "We do need to talk about _that _though. Problem being, how do we do it? If something comes up they'll figure it out. Even Iris will be able to tell that something's wrong."

"You mean tell our kids that their Fluctlight, and therefore their memories, are in danger of being overwritten? Or that false memories may be implanted into them if someone's able to hack into the feed of their Soul Links? Oh you know, just drop it on them like it's nothing." Sarcasm was evident in Sol's response.

"You aren't funny, stop trying." Even if he couldn't see her face Sol could _feel _Mika roll her eyes at him. "But yeah, that thing."

"I leave that one to you big sister," Sol didn't want to have to be the one that told them there was the chance their memories could be messed with.

"Did I ever tell you how good you are at giving sensitive news?"

"Yes," Sol replied quickly, "on multiple occasions. If I remember right I suck at it."

"Point taken, I'll be the bearer of bad news this time 'round then."

-o-O-o-

Sitting at the table waiting for a call was not Iris' idea of a good time. Even still that's what she was doing, alongside the other members of her family that were now stuck in a virtual world. She honestly didn't think it was all as bad as the others were taking it, she had faith that they'd get out soon enough. Both Uncle Sol and Mother were great with computers so they would be able to think of something that'd get them out within two days at most. Having such faith in them, Iris wanted to go out and make the most of the time she had with her family.

They were still in the room they had rented out of the inn. Ceres had looked into her inventory and found that everything that all of her ALO items were indeed still with her. After that she had taken a look at her skills to check and see if any of them had been affected by the virus. Finding nothing wrong with her character data, besides the obvious look, she took out a set of playing cards. Right now they were playing a small game to pass the time until they got some response from the real world. After ALO had gone worldwide the game's days no longer reflected what was outside. So while it was evening in Alne, it was closer to midday in the real world.

"Bored!" Tossing her cards onto the table Iris laid her head down on the wooden surface.

"We already told you Iris, we're waiting here until we get a call from Father or Aunt Mika," Ceres said as she took a card from the pile in the middle of the table. Grimacing at the playing card she'd gotten Ceres nonetheless added it to her hand.

"No," the younger girl replied, "YOU said we were waiting and then pulled out these cards and now we've been here for the past two hours waiting."

"I'm kinda with Iris on this one Sis." Looking over the tops of his cards at his sister Ciro tried to get a read on the stone faced brunette. "Even if we head to a dungeon we can still get calls. Besides Aunt Mika did tell us to go out and have some fun, getting my butt kicked at various card games isn't my idea of fun."

"I think Ceres has the right idea Ciro," Fay added her two cents to the matter while she watched her cousin for any signs of how good his hand was. She may not look it but Fay was a shrewd card player, she could read people and figure out their hands easily. That skill was in the real world, in the game world where emotions were easier to read Fay had scary level abilities. "If Mother or Uncle Sol does call us while we're in a dungeon how are we supposed to answer it exactly?"

"Not like we're holding a phone." Picking herself up off the table Iris looked her sister dead in the eye daring her to try and prove her wrong. "All we gotta do is press the icon that pops up, takes like two seconds."

"And if Mother calls me that puts us in quite the bind. I can't talk with her and recite spells." Making a valid point Fay hid a smile behind her cards as Ciro made his move.

Iris placed her chin on her hand as she thought about what they could do should that happen. Reaching into her bag, which she had called up from her inventory earlier, the red head produced a small notebook. It looked like a little diary that would hold nothing more than a month's worth of entries at most. Being a virtual world, size was very deceiving. The notebook was an item that was sold for players to well, take notes in. Most used it to plan out battle strategies or write down information they had learned from other players or NPCs. For Iris, it was a diary where she recorded things in great detail so she could remember them later. She always had a problem remembering things and had taken to keeping such a diary, both in games and in the real world, so that she had something to consult should she not be able to remember something.

Going through the table of contents Iris pulled up all the information they she had written about ALO, more specifically the phone option. Reading over the contents of what she had previously written Iris found what she was looking for.

"Ah-ha!" Hold out the diary so that the others could read it Iris felt proud. "All you have to do is set it to speaker phone and the rest of us will be able to speak to Mother even if we aren't right next to you."

"Well you two?" Ciro placed his cards down on the table waiting for the others to come up with a rebuttal

"Suppose that we'll head out then," Ceres gave in. She started collecting all of the cards off the table, getting ready to head.

"You know Ceres, I'm shocked that you were against going and fighting monsters." Getting up Iris made the obvious observation. Ciro and Fay looked over that the mentioned person, just now realizing that _Ceres_ of all people had been against going out and battling. Ceres, the queen of wanting to fight and prove her strength had just been content to sit and play cards for over two hours.

"She's… right…" Ciro muttered finally able to comprehend what just happened.

"But… it's Ceres," Fay added, equally as dumbfounded as Ciro.

"Even I need some downtime." Was all Ceres said on the matter before heading out of the room. Before following after Ceres the others opened up their menus and equipped their appropriate armor. Iris' monk outfit was replaced with her normal leather Cait Sith armor, Ciro's robes vanished to be replaced with the green clothing he'd grown accustomed to. Fay's outfit more or less just changed colors as she switched to her Undine armor, everything was bluer and her skirt grew a few inches.

"Never realized how similar your outfits are," Iris looked her sister over noticing the small change.

"It's why I take up sewing, weaving, or any other thing they name it in each game," Fay replied with a smile.

Outfitted in more appropriate clothing for ALfhiem Online the three headed out after Ceres to see where she had vanished to. While they were wearing items they had gotten from the game there were still things that caused them all to stick out. Obviously Fay still had her wings to show that something was wrong and Iris' wolf tail didn't fit in either. As for Ciro and Ceres they could blend in a bit more but the colors of their avatars were of a brighter hue then you'd normally find in ALO which mirrored the colors of the real world as best as they could.

Seeing as how it was evening at the moment and the light was dying down the street lamps of Alne had started to come, casting a flickering light alongside the sunset. Ceres was already in her red chestplate with her sword resting at her hip and shield on her arm. Looking over her shoulder she noticed the others coming out of the inn. The red wings of the Salamander race appeared and Ceres took off into the skies, making sure to go slow enough that the other could catch up. Jumping into the air after Ciro and Iris' wings flared to life.

Fay stood on the ground looking up at her departing family and she started to wonder how she was going to fly. The difference in flight between ALO and HnH, where her avatar was from, was slightly different. ALO characters had fairy styled wings whereas HnH had angel or demon style and the muscles she needed imagine and work were different. Figuring that since everything else other than appearance should be in done in ALO she tried to call up her blue Undine wings. As she thought about them her white feathered wings vanished to be replaced by the set of ALO.

"You don't stick out like a sore thumb now Fay!" As she cheered Iris flew alongside the now airborne Fay. "Wonder if your other wings are really gone or if they just vanished to make room for your Undine wings."

"We'll figure out when we land," Ceres shouted down at those that had fallen behind.

"Speaking of which, where are we going?" Catching up to his sister Ciro wondered where she was going that she had just taken off like that.

"Salamander territory." Adding nothing more to her statement Ceres continued flying south, the direction of the Desert area that belonged to the fire fairy race. While fearful of heading to a section of the world where all but Ceres could be attacked on sight simply for not being of the Salamander race, they all followed after her anyways trusting her to not get them killed.

Long ago when ALO had first been created there had been a time limit on how long you could fly, that had been removed only a few years after it launched. Now the only limit on flight was that you couldn't fly underground as a fairy's wings needed either sunlight or moonlight in order to work. The only race that didn't have this limitation was the Imps. Even then they could only maintain flight underground for a full two minutes at a steady pace.

With no flight limit and the fact they wouldn't get tired physically made it so that you could fly all day long so long as you didn't go underground. Travel in ALO was simple and short when you could fly at insane speeds and cover the entire continent in single day. Compare this to the five days it took to cross it walking, it wasn't hard to figure out why most everyone flew to their destination.

Flying at speeds that only those who had master flight without the controller, they were covering a lot of ground in a little time. By the time the sun had set they had reached Dragons Valley. Mountains wrapped around the capital city of Alne, creating a natural protective barrier. There were a few passages leading to the central city and the one located near the Salamander's territory was the Dragons Valley. It wasn't underground entirely meaning that you could fly through the most of it, but there were a few spots where the valley ran deep and if you were walking along the bottom you'd find yourself unable to fly at certain times of the day.

Flying through Dragons Valley wasn't easy though. As the name suggests it was home to many dragons. Monsters in ALO, like players, didn't have levels so the players had come up with a system for ranking the power of the creatures. As it stood at the moment there were four distinct categories for monsters. Solo, a monster that can easily be tackled by a single player. Group monsters needed a small party, around three or four people of any specialty to safely take it down. Party, these ones required a fully balanced party to beat. Last was the Raid monsters, these behemoths could take anywhere from two to seven full parties in order to take down. A star was added to the name Raid in order to give an idea of how many parties were needed to beat it. So if a monster was called a Three Star Raid Monster, you'd want three parties worth of people to take it down.

Most of the dragons in the valley were of Group level but there were a good number of them were Five Star Raid Monsters. If you walked along the ground path you wouldn't run into any of the Raid level monsters, which allowed even the weaker players to make use of the Valley passageway. Since their party only consisted of four people at the moment they should really only be able to take on the creatures the patrolled the path.

"Ceres don't tell me you plan on heading _through_ the valley," Ciro called out to the lead flier when he noticed that she was moving to land.

"Where's your sense of adventure?" She called back to him as she pulled her sword from its sheath. The _Radiant Edge _caught the starlight and shone brilliantly even in the low light.

"On the ground where I have chance of living!" Stopping in midair Ciro looked to see what his cousins were going to do. Like him they didn't want to go on a suicide mission that would serve no point then to send them back to Alne with their skills lowered due to the system's Death Penalty.

"I didn't really plan to fly all the way through, the first few minutes are safe. The caves of the Raid monsters lie near the middle of the valley." Looking a little hurt Ceres did a nosedive for the ground, pulling up just in time for a soft landing.

Together the others flew down after and landed beside the swordswoman. As guessed by Iris earlier, Fay's white wings reappeared once her fairy wings were no longer in use. A torrent of bubbles was soon unleashed on the world as Masir was called out of Iris' inventory. When a person's avatar left ALO, their pet monster was turned into an item they could use upon returning to game to call their familiar back.

While Ceres had her weapon out already, the others hadn't gotten around to doing and now pulled the items out of their inventory. Ciro's _Siren's Wail_ appeared on his back within easy over the shoulder reach. Iris' _Fenrir's Fang _was attached to her waist while a few throwing spikes appeared on the opposite side. Appearing in Fay's hands was the spear class weapon called _Valkyrie's Burden. _The bladed part of the spear somewhat resembling an H shape, with the sides of the H curved outwards. Coming straight up the middle was a normal triangular spear point. The bladed sides could be used for slashing while the middle point was used for skewering the opponent.

Being the only one really inclined towards physically fighting, Ceres took the lead and headed down the path. It was a large path, one that could fit a large wagon easily, so there would be plenty of room to fight when they ran into monsters. They'd have to watch out though as the large stony valley walls concealed caves filled with some of the lesser dragons. Iris' eyes glowed with a green light as she used her Search power to look for any monsters that were hidden in the cracks and crevices of the valley walls.

By the time they could no longer see the start of the valley path they ran into their first monster. Spotting the creature behind a rock with her Search skill, Iris had been able to warn them of the monster lying in wait. It was a _Flare Drake_, a wingless red scaled dragon that used fire magic in tandem with its claws and fangs. Standing twice as tall as Ceres, the tallest member of the group, the rock it was hiding behind was more of a boulder. Fay and Ciro stacked a few buffs on the party, the symbols appearing under their MP bars to show they'd been affected by the spells.

Alone a _Flare Drake _wasn't much problem as it was ranked a high powered Solo monster. However, the Drake family line of monsters traveled in groups of up to ten. While it was rare to see more than one element in a group there was the chance a _Frost _or _Spark Drake_ was nearby. Should there be the full ten monsters waiting around for the chance to pick off some unwary travelers, the buffs that had been cast would actually be of use.

Banging her sword on her shield Ceres attempted to draw the _Flare Drake _out of hiding. There were no outright skills that draw the attention of monsters but there were things a player could do to increase the chances of the enemy targeting them rather than other party members. Dealing high amounts of damage was a good way to keep a monster's attention on you, so mages like Fay had to be careful not to overpower the more tank players like Ceres. Banging weapons together would also get the attention of monsters, it was an outside system skill, something that worked just as well as a skill but wasn't programmed into the system.

The _Flare Drake_ poked its serpentine head out from behind the boulder to see what was causing the noise. Seeing the small group of players it let out a roar that bounced off the valley walls. Strumming on his harp Ciro created a sound that countered the roar so they didn't have to cover their ears to block out the loud noise. The roar's purpose wasn't to only cause the _Drake's _foes to stagger but to call the others in creatures in the area. As the roar ended two different magic attacks hit the _Flare Drake _square in the face. A lightning bolt from Ceres, who knew better than to use fire magic on a fire monster, and a series of icicle spears from Fay. The green HP bar of the _Flare Drake_ dropped down by a solid 16% from the two attacks.

Dashing forward Ceres took the advantage and started to attack the legs of her foe. Red light shone where the _Radiant Edge _cut through the tough scales, indicating that the blow had done damage. Backing up from the assault the _Drake _swung at Ceres with its massive paw. Hiding behind her shield she braced for the impact of the blow. When it came a light appeared around Ceres showing that one of the buffs had kicked in to help her block the attack.

Out of the black night another roar echoed off the walls of the valley, reinforcements had arrived and the first _Flare Drake _had only just dropped to below half health. Still using the Search skill Iris was able to see in the dark and called out the positions of the approaching monsters. In total there were an additional six _Drakes _from down the road, one of them colored a deep gold of the _Spark Drake_.

Gold wings sprouted on Iris' back as she took the air just above the group, Masir flying alongside her. Chanting one of the few spells that she had been able to memorize Iris shot a water laser at the approaching group of wingless dragons. Now having a distinct target the _Drakes _launched their own attack at the flying wolf girl, five fireballs arched through the air towards Iris. A torrent of water rushed up to meet the fireballs. _Flowing Shield, _a protective water spell that was used to stop magic attacks. The downside of the spell was that it could only be used to block a single element at a time and was completely useless against anything other than magic. Standing below was Fay, one hand pointing to where the fireballs had been.

A soft melody wafted through the area as Ciro played a tune that speed up the recovery of the party's MP. Some of a Pooka's magic song effects would last even after they had stopped playing the song while others were only in effect so long as the melody was being played. The MP recovery song, _Titania's Ballade_, would only last as long as Ciro kept playing it.

With their MP bar gradually restoring itself Fay and Iris used their magic a bit more freely on the approaching _Drakes _to keep their focus off Ceres while she dispatched of the original _Flare Drake_. With the powers granted to her by the spells from Ciro and Fay, Ceres was able to deal a great deal of damage to the monster while taking little herself. That wasn't to say that she wasn't in danger or that her HP hadn't dropped during her skirmish, but she was able to prevent enough damage that Fay didn't have to worry so much about healing Ceres.

Unleashing a four hit ice element sword skill on the _Fire Drake _Ceres finished the monster off. As her foe turned into polygons and died the other _Drakes _arrived at the scene. Not a one of them were at full health thanks to the efforts of Fay and Iris, but none of them had yet to drop into the yellow of half health either.

"Iris take out the _Spark Drake_!" Ceres called out as she charged the group of draconic creatures. With a nod in understanding Iris flew over the ranks of the monsters to the back where the electric wingless dragon was situated. If she took this one out then they'd only have to deal with one element which Fay could use her _Flowing Shield _without having to worry about the lightning attacks passing through it.

To keep the other four _Flare Drake's _attention on her Ceres looked back at Ciro and nodded her head. Knowing exactly what his sister wanted of him Ciro dropped _Titania's Ballade _and switched to _Zephyr's Charge_. With a large boost to her speed Ceres was able to fly into ranks of the monsters and cut large glowing red gashes into the crimson scales of the _Flare Drakes._ Part of ALO's damage system was the speed with which the blow was delivered, going faster than normal Ceres had just unleashed a staggering amount of damage on the creatures, dropping three of them down to the yellow zone.

Also receiving the speed boost from Ciro's music Iris was dodging the claws of the _Spark Drake _with ease, she was more making a game of it rather than attacking. Back flipping away from a bite Iris pulled out one of her throwing spikes and tossed it into the open jaws of the _Drake. _Stuck in the tongue the spike was causing the monster's HP to slowly deplete. As the _Spark Drake _was preoccupied trying to dislodge the spike in its mouth Iris closed the distance between them and slashed it its vulnerable underbelly. Masir was right there next to her using his little claws to scratch away the enemy's HP. Using the Dagger Skill, _Rapid Bite_, Iris stabbed into the soft flesh a total of fourteen times. An ice spear from Fay flew through the air and pierced the same spot Iris' dagger stabbed as her combo finished her combo. A death roar escaped the _Spark Drake's _mouth right before it shattered.

Turning her attention to the remaining _Flare Drakes _Iris watched as one of them had its HP reduced to a smidgen. Flying at sonic speeds Iris stabbed _Fenrir's Fang _into the back of the almost dead monster. Having seen Iris coming in to finish off the _Drake _Ceres had turned her back to it and cut into the leg of another. Down to only three monsters left Fay joined in the fight leaving the role of the supporter to Ciro.

Again the musician switched his songs to better fit the situation. Rather than powering up his allies Ciro played a melody that was meant to weaken the enemies. _Grave Crescendo _was a song that would lower a monsters reaction time. They would still be able to attack at a normal speed but the moves were spaced out farther than normal leaving them more open to attack.

With their reaction time skewed, the three girls were able to dispatch the _Flare Drakes_ with ease. Even as strong Solo monsters, they were still Solo monsters able to be taken down by a single player. Finishing her foe off with an uppercut to the side Ceres watched her cousins kill the remaining two. Iris killed hers by ducking under its legs and using a Dagger Skill combo to deal a series of fast blows. Flying high into the sky, Fay came crashing down onto the back of her _Flare Drake_ causing it to burst into polygons as Fay continued through it to the ground. By the end of the fighting Ciro was completely unhurt while the girls had each only lost about 12% of their max HP.

"Well then," sheathing her sword Ceres faced her allies, "shall we continue?"

"Nope," Iris said as she saw a yellow icon appear in front of her, "Mother's calling."

"Timing," was all Ciro said.

"Afternoon kiddies," Mika's voice came in loud and clear over the system.

"Whatcha talking about Mother, it's night time." Iris corrected.

"Right, time difference. Anyways I've got some good news and bad news. You're getting the bad news first so you might want to brace yourselves." Mika launched into an explanation about the dangers the kids were currently in, about how the Soul Link could currently be used to alter their memories if anyone was able to break into it. She went completely technical about it explaining just how their memories could be changed or how new ones could be put in at a whim. "It's a lot to take in I know but Sol and I are monitoring your feeds to make sure that nothing odd is going on with them, if we suspect an intruder then we'll be right there to take care of them."

"Our memories are in danger?" Ceres looked down at the ground as she processed what she'd just been told.

"I _really _don't need someone messing with my memories, I have problems enough." Plopping down onto the ground Iris hung her head, worried that her already bad memory may now get worse.

"Your dad and I debated telling you but we figure that you all deserve to know that there's the chance something can happen. The chances of it happening are small but if you guys feel like you know something you shouldn't or that you've forgotten something that you _know_ you should remember I want you to contact us right away."

"And the good news?" Fay asked in hopes that whatever it was would bring their spirits up.

"It's part bad news too, sorry to pile it all on like this." Mika sounded exasperated as she spoke, like it'd been a long day on her end. "Rath, the company that produced the Soul Link, is working on an anti-virus already. Tomorrow Sol and I will head in and help them out, we'll be getting a crash course in Fluctlight technology but we should be able to help."

"So they're working on it at least," Ciro sighed in relief in knowing that one of the larger corporations in the world was at work to find the solution to the problem.

"Yup," a more cheerful reply from Mika than anyone expected at the moment echoed through the valley. "I know it'll be hard to have knowing what's going on but try to you guys. Make the most out of this time you four got while you're stuck together."

"We'll try Aunt Mika." Running her hand over the hilt of her sword Ceres promised her aunt.

"Oh, one more thing." Sounding like she was the one who had her memories possibly altered Mika remembered one more thing she had to tell the group. "This should show you guys that Rath mean business, they've already named this thing. They're calling it The Withered Tree Virus cause it's effecting the Seed Nexus."

"I get it," Ciro chuckled at the name of the virus. "You can look at the Seed Nexus like a large tree and with this virus infecting players the tree, in other words the games, will start to die off. Making the tree wither."

"It's no fun if you explain the joke," Iris scoffed at her cousin.

"Alrighty then, Sol and I got some stuff to pack and data to transfer. Me or Sol will call you once we have any more information, love you guys."

"Love you too," the four chorused before the line went dead.

* * *

**(A/N): **Alright I know it might be a little early for one, but there's a poll up on my profile that you guys should go and vote on.


	5. Chapter 5: The Gift of Infection

Chapter 5

The Gifts of Infection

"Let's head to Garthram for now," Fay said, being the first one of the group to speak up after Mika had hung up. Halfhearted answers followed as everyone produced a Teleport Crystal, one of the items that had come to ALO with the addition of the floating castle. One of these crystals could be used to teleport to any _neutral _city in ALO. A Gnome couldn't use one to warp to a town within Salamander territory, but the Salamander could use one to warp to a town in his own territory. Holding the crystal aloft they all called out the name of the city they were teleporting to.

Garthram was the name of Aincrad's 86th floor's main city. It was a floor trapped in perpetual winter with snow covering every street and rooftop. Most of the buildings were made out of stone but the church was carved out of solid ice. Fire burned throughout the town keeping it moderately warm for being stuck in winter. No matter how hot the fires, the church never showed any signs of melting.

Appearing at the teleport gate in the whitewashed town the four walked off the platform, snow crunching under their feet. Fay had chosen this town for a good reason, she had a small cottage in the nearby forest. There wasn't much to the 86th floor as the floors got smaller the higher up you went. Aside from Garthram the floor was covered with trees. It was a forgettable floor when compared to the other 99 and the main continent. Only thing that drew people to the floor was the labyrinth that lead up to the 87th floor.

Without any real reason to come to this floor the town was mostly empty save for the random few players that were working their way up the floors on their own power. A good way to gain skill levels was to start at the bottom of Aincrad and work your way to the top. The Aincrad update has caused most of the monsters on the main continent to turn into Party level monsters while the lower floors of the floating castle could be tackled solo turning it into the perfect training grounds. Of course this was just a rule of thumb, Raid monsters existed on the first floor and there were Solo strength ones even up at the Ruby Palace on the 100th floor.

The forest was filled with Douglas fir trees coated in the powdery white snow. A few of the floor's monsters lived in the trees and used the snow caught on tree branches to bury players in the accumulated powder. _White Coat Squirrels _might not sound like the most threatening thing out there but they were quite powerful and their natural camouflage made it so even those with high a Search skill had troubles finding them.

Reaching Fay's little house without running into any monsters she opened the door and let the others inside. When a person owned a home they could create a list of people that had access to it even when the owner wasn't online, allowing it to serve as a sort of base for friends. Only Fay's family had access to the cottage while she was away.

"Much warmer in here," running in Iris jumped onto the small couch and stretched herself out, tail wagging the entire time. Masir flew over and perched himself on the back of the couch and watched over his master.

Bringing up the house's menu Fay caused the fireplace in the house to be set aflame and produce more heat in the closed off area. Her cabin was only two rooms, the main room and a tiny bedroom. Sparsely decorated the place looked like no one lived in it.

"What'd you bring us here for Fay?" Ceres calmly asked as she took a seat at the table near the fireplace.

"I figured it'd be a better place to rest then in the middle of the valley." Walking over to a small counter with cupboards hanging above it Fay pulled out four small cups. Pulling the ingredients out of the drawers of the counters Fay set about making some tea.

"Sounds like a good idea," taking the seat opposite of his sister Ciro looked the small place over.

"We just got finished with resting. Ciro weren't you and Iris both complaining about doing nothing but playing cards less than an hour ago?" Leaning back in her chair Ceres looked at her brother and Iris to see if they had any arguments.

"That was before we found out that our memories can be erased, altered, or even have new one implanted." Staring at the back of his right hand Ciro glared at the green tree tattoo that had appeared there. They were all sure that the symbol was some sort of mark, a sign that they had been infected by the virus.

With the tea finished Fay brought the cups and pot over to the table before she poured everyone a drink. Taking her own spot next to Ceres she sipped at her tea. Even Iris came over to the table to get a drink. Masir stayed on his perch and gave his master a look before lying his head back down. While it didn't do anything to fill their stomachs that were starting to grow hungry, it did have a pleasant effect on their mind. There was just something about drinking hot tea on a cold day that was soothing.

"Kinda takes the fun out of it everything when you have to worry about losing your memories," Iris looked down at her cup and sighed, she didn't really enjoy tea all that much. "Guess I can blame anything I don't remember on the virus now though." With a forced laugh Iris picked up her cup and downed the contents, ignoring the fact it was still piping hot.

"So you three are content to sit here and do nothing while we wait for Rath and our parents to do something?" Annoyed, and it clearly showing on her face, Ceres asked the others.

"What would you have us do Ceres? Do you really think we can just go on about playing the game like it's any other day?" Not wanting to deal with his sister's more aggressive nature Ciro went on the offensive.

"Beats sitting around and wallowing in self-pity. I come here to _escape _that feeling. When we were sitting back in Alne playing cards I had time to figure stuff out. If I'm going to be stuck in this game then I'm going to make the most of it." Finishing her drink, Ceres stood up and made for the door. A hand on her shoulder held her back from leaving. Shaking his head Ciro tried to pull Ceres back from the door. "Let go."

"Stay here for a while. At least for a bit." Seeing that he'd made the wrong move by matching Ceres' normal anger Ciro pleaded with his sister.

"I won't go far." Seeing the worry in the eyes of her family members Ceres promised. "Just need to do something other than sit down right now. The squirrel population around here's gotten out of control."

Understanding her plight Ciro let go and watched as the armored form of his sister walk out the door to go and work out her frustrations. When the door closed behind her he head back to the table and sat down. Two sets of eyes stared at Ciro while he nervously sipped at his tea. A green and blue eye glared at him from his side while a pair of violet orbs looked at him curiously from across the table.

"What does she mean she comes here to escape that feeling?" Fay calmly asked.

"Yeah Ciro," Iris poked her cousin in the side. "What did she mean?"

"That is a good question." Wondering if he'd done the right thing letting his sister head out on her own Ciro leaned back in his chair.

"I know that sitting around doing nothing has never been Ceres' style but she seems a bit more... antsy than normal." Resting her hands on her lap Fay tried to think of what was causing Ceres to act like she was and what she had meant.

"She makes a good point though," Iris added as she raided the cupboards looking at what else was stocked in the shelves. Cupboards could keep items inside even if the user was playing in another game. Frowning when she couldn't anything that peaked her interest she kept going through in a vain hope something better was hidden. "Doing something is better than doing nothing. But with all this memory business it's hard to get as excited."

"We need a quest, a big one," Ciro suggested. "Something that'll take a while to complete. Any ideas?"

"Hmm," having given up looking aimlessly through the cupboards Iris produced her little journal and looked through to see if there were any quests that fit the requirements. Scrolling through the list of known quests that she'd bothered to write down Iris came across something. "We could always do the _Serpent Slayer_ quest. We can always try killing _Jörmungandr_, it's supposed to take a long time to even find him as he changes floors every three days or something like that."

"So we traverse 100 floors worth of land and try to find _one _creature?" Already Ciro was dreading the quest, it'd take forever to scour the entirety of Aincrad for one wandering boss.

ALO had a heavy Norse mythology influence as indicated by its very name, ALfheim. Many quests fit in with this theme as the Cardinal system would use the lore to generate quests for the players. The main continent was the world Alfhiem while the NPCs of the world regard the floating castle of Aincrad as Midgard. Originally everyone in Aincrad had been human, back when it was the world for Sword Art Online, even now you wouldn't find any fairy NPCs roaming the streets of the castle. Currently hunting _Jörmungandr_, the Midgard Serpent, was the most active quest.

"Isn't that what we want?" Iris questioned confused as to why Ciro was being so picky.

"There's a difference between a quest that takes time and a quest that causes you to run around like a chicken with its head cut off." Scratching the back of his head in thought Ciro let out a sigh. "Besides _Jörmungandr _is regarded as a Seven Star Raid Monster. Even if we did find it we'd need 45 more people to take it down."

"But finding it is the fun part!" Far more interested in exploring than battling, a quest to search for a monster tickled Iris' sense of adventure.

"Iris, we need something that we can all enjoy doing." Pointing out the obvious Fay shot down her sister's excitement in record time.

"What's not fun about it?" Genuinely confused as to why Ciro and Fay were against the quest Iris wanted to know the answer.

"Aincrad is huge to put it lightly," Ciro answered. "Covering all that ground in three days' time is impossible, by the time we get even a quarter of the castle searched the three days will be up and _Jörmungandr _will have moved to another location. Without a large cooperative force we have almost no chance of finding it."

"We're also Renegades," Fay added. A Renegade was someone who _willing _left their home territory in favor of partying with anyone. "Finding others to party with would be difficult." There was still direct competition between the nine races of ALO and with the _Serpent Slayer _quest being the most popular, the nine races had turned it into a small contest to see which race could find and kill it first. So far the Gnomes had found it had given it the ranking of seven stars after their utter defeat at the hands of the serpent.

"So you don't want to do it cause it'll take too long to find?" Asking for clarification Iris got her answer in the form of Ciro and Fay nodding their heads. "Drat." Going back to scrolling through her quest list Iris tried to find something that wouldn't take so long to find yet would take time to complete.

"How about we head to sleep for now?" Fay suggested.

"What?!" Iris called out, looking up from her notebook. Her eyes darted down to where the time was in her field of vision. "It's only four in the afternoon, it's WAY too early for sleep."

"If we're going to be staying in here for a while then we should sleep when it's night here." Getting up and putting all the dishes into the sink Fay opened the command menu for the house and dimmed all the lights so they'd have a better chance of sleeping. "Now, bed." Narrowing her eyes at her elder sister Iris didn't budge an inch. Leaning her head down so that she was looking over the tops of glasses Fay glared back at her rebellious sibling. "March."

Pointing to the door to the only bedroom in the house, it was clear what the silver haired girl wanted. It was a battle of will carried out in a staring contest between the two girls. With virtual bodies there wasn't a real need to blink so the small battle of wills lasted some time before Iris groaned and gave up the fight. Placing her notebook back into her inventory Iris headed over to the bedroom, grumbling all the way.

A smile on her face Fay turned back around to the sink and started to clean the dirty dishes. Of course you didn't have to do such thing in the game, they'd get clean the second she placed them in the cupboards or her inventory. Still to keep a sense of realism for their players the makers had it so such trivial things could be manually. However, things like cooking were still oversimplified.

"You reminded me a lot Aunt Rin right there," Ciro stated from his spot at the table. At the moment there was nothing for him to do.

"Best way to handle Iris is to mimic Mom, even Mother does it from time to time." Obviously proud of herself that she was able to copy Rin to such a degree Fay started to hum while she worked. In no time at all she was done with what she was doing. "You and Ceres can decide who gets the couch, sorry that I don't have more furniture. I'll head out and buy some tomorrow."

"It's fine. I'm sure that if you knew we were going to get trapped in a virtual world you'd have decorated a better." Chuckling at his own joke Ciro made his way over to the couch and laid down. "I'll stay up until Ceres gets back and let her know what's going on."

"Thank you Ciro." With a short wave Fay headed into the same bedroom that Iris had disappeared into.

-o-O-o-

Ceres closed her eyes and listened for the sounds of the creatures moving through the trees. Recently she had taken to partying with her family more often but she still knew how to play this game solo. Her entire skill set reflected the fact that she was a solo player. While most players seemed to rely on the Search skill, like Iris, there was another skill that one could train to discover the locations of monsters. Detection was the name of the skill and it granted the user the ability to sense the presence of monsters. At higher levels the distance and accuracy of the skill grew. Whether or not it helped to close her eyes Ceres always felt that she was more accurate at Detecting with her vision hindered.

Hearing the rustling of the tree branch above her Ceres sidestepped as the place she'd just been standing in was pelted with snowballs. Chanting the words for a mid-level homing fire spell she aimed for the spot she thought the monster was located. Even if she didn't know the exact location of the creature her homing spell would help make up for her accuracy.

Crying out as the fire spell hit it, the _White Coat Squirrel _fell out of the trees. As the name implied the monster looked like a giant white furred squirrel. Black hooked claws were the main form of attack for them once they left the trees. That and the long fangs that could pierce even the rarer armors.

Opening her eyes Ceres looked at the floating HP bar of her opponent. Seeing only a small chunk missing from the bar she reasoned that her spell must have just grazed it rather than fully connected. Dropping into a ready stance she waited to see if the _Squirrel _was going to make any moves first. When playing alone she was far more cautious about her HP than when she was with a party, there was no one to patch her up should her HP drop too far.

A tense moment later Ceres charged at the white furred animal with her shield in front of her. Landing in front of the _Squirrel_, which stood at about knee height, Ceres stabbed at her opponent which easily dodged the predictable attack. A trace of a smile on her lips Ceres thrust her shield forward and into the retreating monster. The full force of her attack caused the creature to fly a few feet backwards from the power behind it.

Her MP gauge wasn't even at half yet so Ceres had no qualms about letting off another spell at the oversized rodent. This time going for power over accuracy the Salamander girl launched a spell that had no homing capabilities, relying on the accuracy of the caster, in exchange for a greater damage output. The green HP bar of the monster dropped down into the yellow zone. For a _White Coat Squirrel _the aggressiveness of the monster changed once the health fell down below half.

Leaping up out of the snow the _Squirrel's _eyes had turned blood red as it went into a rage mode. In this state it would attack wildly and much faster than before. Holding her shield up Ceres readied herself for the attack that would surely come. For a pint sized creature it packed a punch as Ceres felt herself pushed back by the frenzied assault that came her way. Shields in ALO didn't negate all the damage dealt to the wielder, they would still lose a minor amount of HP with each strike they blocked.

Watching her HP fall down to near the red zone Ceres started to grow a little worried about surviving the encounter. Of the heal spells she knew off the top of her head neither would be of much use in this situation. One would heal her a great deal but took time to mutter all the words and if she messed it up she'd have to start the incantation. She'd be dead before she got it off. The other was a quick two word spell that was meant for patch ups, by the time the spell was done she'd have lost more HP than what had been restored.

"I'm not dying here!" An orange glow surrounded her shield as Ceres activated the standard shield skill, _Shield Bash_. This skill did no damage to a monster but inflicted a strong stunning effect and was one of the few skills out there that didn't have a rebound effect on the user. The duration of this effect depended on a number of things, one of them being the monster's size relative to the shield. Being only slightly larger than the shield Ceres was using, the _White Coat Squirrel _took the full force of the skill and the stun symbol appeared next to its HP bar.

"Now, take this!" Holding her sword aloft Ceres triggered a custom sword skill that she had bought the rights to. The purple aura of the skill covered the blade as the system assisted Ceres in executing the move. Like any system sword skill the custom made ones carried elemental damage with them so even melee fighters could take advantage of a monster's weakness. The creator of this skill wasn't the most original of people. _Blazing Sword _was the title given to the attack and its elemental alignment was 90% fire and 10% wind. In the eight slashes of the skill Ceres was able to reduce the monster to nothing more than a few scattered polygons.

"I need to get stronger," Ceres muttered to herself as she put away her sword. Taking a glance at her HP she saw that she had indeed dropped down into the red zone.

Like others of the era, Ceres played VRMMOs to feel better about herself. Some people felt powerless in the real world and came to the virtual world to have a taste of power. This sense of false power wasn't what Ceres ran to the coded realm for, she was facing something else entirely. Back in the real world she had hard times relating to others and making friends, she had hoped that by coming to ALO she could find a sense of community. It had worked at first, people approached her and talked with her without hesitation, she had even added a few people to her friend's list.

Such a thing couldn't last long though. As Ceres found parties and helped them out she found that most people that partnered up with her were using her as bait for the monsters. As a person who hadn't played any games out of the Seed Nexus before Ceres had a strong lack of understanding the mechanics of the game. Having been happy to have people that partied with her Ceres had ignored the feeling in the back of her mind that warned her she was being used. After weeks of playing with these people that used her as bait Ceres finally gave into the sensation that had been bugging her.

That bad experience had almost turned her away from playing ALO anymore. At that point though her brother and cousins learned that she had started playing and so she had kept playing the game. That'd been two years ago. Now she understood that there were good and bad people in the virtual world just like in the real world, though some changed their personality with the world they were in. Ceres no longer thought badly of the gaming community but she was weary of getting burned again so she trained solo and only partied with her family and the friends they brought along with them.

There was no doubt in Ceres' mind that this was a fault that needed fixing and she was trying to work on it and she felt that she was getting better. Just by being a Salamander she could head to her race's home territory and strike up conversations with people simply because there was a large sense of belonging with one's own race in a game that supported fights between the races. Already she had started to become friends with people, as a strong player she was a sought after party member.

In the real world she was still the "normal" Ceres. Back in the real world she didn't have anything that she felt she could talk about with people like she could in ALO. Here in the game it was easy to strike up a conversation, just talk about the latest quests or about the upcoming updates. In the real world Ceres never felt like she had anything interesting to say, that she would be ignored should she try to talk about video games. For Ceres, she came to the virtual world to get away from the feelings of loneliness that plagued her.

Now this virus threatened to separate her from the people she could call friends. There were people who experienced glitches from time to time, just a part of the system that was unavoidable, and while they were glitching others would avoid them like the plague, like the glitch could be transferred to them. If people learned that there was a virus going around then they would avoid the infected in the same way they avoided the people who were glitching. The reason she played VRMMOs was now being taken from her, all that was left for her to do was to grow strong.

"Taking this much damage from a group of _White Coat Squirrels _is ridiculous." Shaking her head to clear her mind from the dangerous path her mind was taking Ceres tried to focus on the problem at hand rather than imagined scenarios. Pulling up her skill list she went to check if any had increased during the battles she had just won.

There were over 50 different skills that a person could use in ALO but they could only equip eight of them at a time. Unequipping a skill didn't cause it to lower but when a player died it'd take a dramatic drop in level compared to the equipped skills. Due to this fact many players didn't train more than the eight skills they could equip and keep safe. As a solo player Ceres trained more than the eight so that she could switch her them out for more appropriate ones when she wasn't out fighting. She was able to forge her own weapons and perform the care for them with ease.

It was when Ceres went to change out one of her equipped skills that she noticed something was different. At the bottom of her list there were four blank slots waiting for new skills to be placed in them. Tapping one of the open slots the skill list appeared next to it just like it would should she try to change out one of her normal eight. Placing in her Lance skill she then opened up her inventory. Unless she had the right level of Lance she wouldn't be able to equip the weapon she carried around with her. No error messages popped up when she changed out her sword for the lance.

"Is this an effect of the virus?" Thinking up the only reason that might have caused the extra skill slots to appear Ceres equipped three more skills to the open slots and tested them out to make sure that they were all in working order. "Aunt Mika said that our characters should be unaffected but there haven't been any updates to the game that would add these slots."

Pondering the reason for why such a thing had happened Ceres started to head back to the cabin to see if any of the others had the same thing happen to them. Making use of her Detecting skill Ceres was able to sense and avoid the monsters on the way back so she didn't have to worry about getting into another fight.

Arriving at the cabin without running into anything bothering her Ceres walked into the cabin to find the lights dimmed and her cousins gone. Sitting on the couch with a book in hand was Ciro. Many published works were added to the databanks of various VRMMO to give the world a more complete feel, and so that the authors had yet another place to sell their wares.

"Where are the others?" Ceres asked announcing her presence.

"Trying to assimilate to the time here in ALO." Raising her eyebrow in confusion at the statement Ceres silently asked Ciro to clarify. "They're sleeping."

"We don't get tired in a game though," pointing out the obvious Ceres sat down on the other side of the couch.

"Physically no." Closing the book and tossing it onto the table in front of him Ciro position himself so it'd be easier to talk with his sister. "But our minds can use some rest, especially after today."

"Ciro have you noticed anything different about your menu?" Showing him her own menu Ceres showed him the extra skill slots she had found. Fast manipulation of his own menu Ciro found that he too had the additional four slots.

"Do you think-"

"Yeah, the virus is effecting us more than Aunt Mika and Father thought," the older twin answered as she had anticipated her brother's question.

"We'll need to be on the lookout for anything else that's happening to us then. Is this the only thing that's changed or are there other things the virus is doing to our character, to us?" His eyes trained on the four empty sections of his equipped skills Ciro tried to think of what else could possibly go wrong with them.

"What I don't get is why it _added _skill slots. This virus has done nothing but hurt us so far, why is it giving us something?"

"Have to ask its creator that, they'd be the only one that knows what the virus is really meant to do."

Sitting in silence the twins went through their menus to see if anything else had been changed. They didn't just look for any additions to the menu, they checked to see if anything was missing or if any of the options weren't working. Trying the Log Out button just in case before closing the menu Ciro silently hoped that the icon would actually work this time around. When there was no rush of light as his consciousness returned to his body he closed the menu.

"Hey Ceres," turning to his sister Ciro put on a serious face, "earlier when you said you come here to escape those feelings, what'd you mean?"

"That's none of your business," she quickly answered.

"Ceres," Ciro said softly trying to show that he didn't want any trouble. "I'm your brother. If something's bugging you then you should let me know."

"It's not something you can help with Ciro."

"You don't know that." He said somberly. Ciro was worried that whatever was on his sister's mind was something that she couldn't work out on her own. "But for now I'll respect your choice to keep it to yourself, I know better than to try and pry anything out of you."

"Camdin," switching to her brother's real name Ceres immediately drove home the severity of the point she was about to make. Ceres had _never_ called _anyone _by their real name in the virtual world. "I promise you that if I thought that you could help me with this I'd ask for it. However, this is something I need to work out for myself and if you knew what it was you'd just try to fix it which would only make the problem worse."

"Maybe a good night's sleep will help then," Ciro said the only thing that came to mind.

"Off my bed then."

"Who said you get the couch?"

"Didn't Father teach you to treat girls with respect and be kind to them?" Already Ceres was fluffing the throw pillow that was in her corner of the couch. "Be kind and take the floor."

"Yes he did, but he also made the point that sisters are an exception to the rule. Looking at his relationship with Aunt Mika it's no wonder." Not budging an inch Ciro stayed in his spot and refused to move out of his sister's way.

Ceres took off her armor leaving just the black tunic she wore underneath and her skirt on, even her boots vanished into her inventory. Stretching out on the couch Ceres propped her legs up on the back of the couch and then wormed them into the spot between the couch and Ciro. With one swift motion Ceres literally kicked Ciro off the couch and made herself comfortable.

"Thanks Brother." Lying her head down on the pillow she'd fluffed Ceres closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep.

Grumbling as he stole the other pillow from the couch Ciro tossed it onto the floor before he turned the lights in the cabin off via the command menu. Normally a player would lie down to sleep in order to make logging out easier on the mind. If they logged out while standing up they'd have the feeling of being vertical for a few seconds before their minds registered the fact that they were now back in their real body and lying horizontal. Thus acting like you were going to sleep to log out had become the norm. Right now Ciro just hoped that he'd be able to do something like sleep and that his mind wouldn't stay up all night while he rested on the floor.


	6. Chapter 6: Infected World

**(A/N): **So yeah, took a while for this chapter to come out. Have good reason, laptop problems, a new job, paying to fix my car. All that fun stuff that you guys don't really care about so go on and read the chapter you've been waiting for. Don't forget to leave a review telling me what you thought of it.

Chapter 6

Infected World

_**May 3, 2096**_

Two weeks had passed in the blink of an eye with very little contact from their parents. Only three days ago had they gotten an update from Mika. Even Rath was having problems figuring out what was going on with the virus. Both Sol and Mika had given the kids an update the last time they called. Without any real news to report the call had been short and more just a reminder of what was at stake. Since everything was taking longer than the company or the family had thought it would they had the kids bodies discreetly moved to a hospital owned by Rath. The care they were getting was top of the line but they had been moved their so that Rath would be able to control any information that might come out of the building. With all the doctors on their dime it was simple to keep the four comatose kids out of the media.

For Ceres and her family, this time had been spent lazing about, doing small quests and keeping an eye on the forums to see if any new time consuming quest had been found. With no quests to really eat up their time they had taken to switching out old skills for ones they didn't use constantly. Well, all but Ceres took time to train the to train their weaker skills. Rather than train skills she rarely ever used Ceres looked at her normal skill set and figured out which of them could use a boost at the moment.

Having nothing more to do than play ALO the four kids were finding that boredom was very possible in a VRMMORPG. Two straight weeks might sounds like fun but the looming fact their memories could be altered and how they couldn't leave when the wanted sucked a lot of that fun away. Feeling more like a prison than a game the four infected wanted nothing more than to leave ALO. They had been cautioned against Jumping though as no one was sure if it'd have any other effects on them or not. Without more information on the virus, Jumping could make them more open to manipulation for all they knew at the moment.

Their two weeks in the game hadn't been spent in solitude. Thanks to Rath's massive global influence none of other players knew exactly what was going on with the people who had out of place avatars. Most players the group met seemed to shrug it off as a minor, if not highly annoying, bug in the system. Of course this hadn't stopped rumors from spreading about the infected. A few rumors mentioned a virus, the majority of them were about either a prank or a possible cross game event. All in all most people would talk with the infected but not everyone was willing to party with them on the off chance one of the virus rumors was true.

Currently the little group of four was undertaking a quest to find and slay a _Minotaur Hornblower_ in order to collect a hoof. Apparently the hoof of this monster could be ground up into a fine powder and mixed with other ingredients to form a type of medicine. The reward for the quest was pretty weak, the local shops would start stocking the medicine. Ciro had already done the quest with some friends before so he knew that effect wasn't the greatest out there, practically any of his healing spells could out perform it. Those that took the medicine would gain a weak regenerative effect, not even strong enough to counter the Poison status ailment. It's only good effect was that it'd stack with any other passive healing ability like the skill Battle Healing. To someone like Ciro who didn't have the skill the potions wasn't very effective.

Searching for the _Minotaur Hornblower_ had led them to the edge of the Gnome territory. Another two hours to the east and they'd be in the land controlled by the earth fairies. However, the group was currently heading upwards in the mountains. The walls of the path were carved with great care, if you ran your hand along them it'd feel smooth. It was the craftsmanship of an old underground dwelling race known as Dwarves. They had once lived alongside the nine fairy races and helped build some of the cities in Alfhiem. No lore had been found yet that explained what had caused the race to vanish from the world. While the game was based in Norse mythology there were enough differences to create confusion should you try to compare the game to the myths leaving people to wonder what happened with the Dwarves. Everyone was waiting to see if this race would have some importance later on in the game. Following the path they were currently on would take them to one of the ancient race's old cities.

"Hey Ceres," Ciro called out as they walked through the cave path. "Even with your Battle Healing skill this potion won't do much for you. So why'd you want to do this quest exactly?"

"The fact I don't have this quest done is reason enough to do it," she replied.

After the night in the cabin Ceres was more focused on getting things done, whether that be a quest or training her skills was no difference to her. Twice Fay had woken up to find Ceres gone. On the second morning Fay had seen this she had gone out to find the Salamander. Ceres had been fighting more of the squirrels, going into an almost berserker like state, completely ignoring her declining HP. Luckily for Ceres that Fay was a healer and was able to stop the brunette from dying and making all of her efforts worthless.

"Besides Ciro," Iris chimed in, "this gives us something to do while we wait."

"She's right," Ceres said with a smile that was more malicious than anything. "Getting something done is better than doing nothing."

Coming out of the corridor and into a wide open space the party of four looked at the remains of the ancient city, halting their conversation. Grey ruined buildings in various levels of decay could be seen in the wide open space they had entered. A large tower in the center of the city was the only thing that looked like it was being taken care of since the stonework wasn't obviously falling apart at all. Shinning crystals lined the top of the cave casting a soft light over the area letting the group see well enough they wouldn't be hindered by a lack of light.

Heading into the ruins the group of four kept a lookout for any signs of monsters. They couldn't let themselves get caught off guard here, a Four Star Raid monster patrolled the area. The lore on the monster said that it was left behind by the dwarves and would kill any intruders, players and monsters alike. With any luck it was still in its re-spawn time and wouldn't be around to kill them. Hiking back up through the mountain because they were careless enough to get killed wasn't anyone's idea of fun.

The Raid monster wasn't the only thing they had to watch out for, the normal monsters of the area would work together if given the chance. All the party had to do was make sure they didn't pull too many of the monsters at once. Such a task was easier said than done, the creature they were hunting was one that would call for help if given the chance. All the monsters in the area would answer the call of the _Minotaur Hornblower_. Breaking his horn wasn't a real option either, it was considered a weapon like a Pooka's harp, and had a very high durability rating.

Using Iris' pet as a scout they were able to avoid unnecessary battles while looking for the _Hornblower_. Battle ready as she was, Ceres knew that in order to get the mission done they'd need to pick their battles. Besides she wanted to be in top shape in case the _Hornblower _was able to call in some allies. When Masir perked up and started to squeal as it detected an approaching monster the group ducked behind a fallen pillar. Waiting to see what was coming down the old road the group prepared themselves for a fight since the only place to run was backwards into a group of monsters they had just avoided.

When the monster came into range of attack for the group a red cursor appeared above it with the name of the creature displayed, _Minotaur Hornblower. _The _Minotaur Hornblower _was a tall monster, if Ceres was standing next to it she'd only come up to about its chest. For a humanoid enemy this was rather tall. As one would think of a monster named _Minotaur _anything, it stood on two legs with hoofed feet. Its body was as thick as a tree trunk and covered in black fur, its massive arms looked like they could snap Ciro in two with ease. His bull head was lifted up and sniffing the air trying to tell if there was anything nearby. Sitting at the monster's waist was the namesake horn, which appeared to be made out of a Minotaur horn, and across from it was a gladius type sword.

Jumping over the pillar, once they had confirmed that the thing in front of them was the monster they were looking for, Ceres let out a shout to get its attention. Pulling its sword out, the _Hornblower_ answered the girl's challenge. Hidden behind Ceres' bulky armored frame was Fay with her lance in hand. Taking the first attack of the _Hornblower _with her shield, the brunette Salamander kept the attention of the monster on her as Fay darted out from behind. With her weapon's long reach Fay aimed for the horn that was still situated at the waist of the _Hornblower._ Destroying the horn wasn't an easy task, but knocking it out of the reach of the owner was an effective way of preventing its use. However, Fay missed as the _Hornblower _twisted itself to try and get a better angle on Ceres. Having spotted the addition of another fighter the _Hornblower _backed up as if to assess the situation. Like most monsters that called for help, the _Hornblower _would call for backup under certain conditions. Players had found out that the three main criteria for when a monster would call for help which included the number of enemies it could see, its HP, and its own strength. A powerful Solo monster like this one would call for help rather quickly.

Not wanting to give their opponent the chance to factor Fay into its algorithms, the two girls quickly attacked again. As the _Hornblower _staggered backwards a fast tempo melody bounced off the stone houses. Glowing softly for a second to show the song had taken effect, Ceres and Fay began to move at a faster speed thanks to Ciro's magic. Now detecting Ciro thanks to his song, the _Hornblower _reached for its namesake and put the instrument to its lips. An arrow flew through the air and bounced off the blackened horn as Iris tried to shoot it out of the monster's hands.

"Didn't work!" Ceres called out to the two who were still behind the pillar. It had been a long shot, having Iris trying to shoot the horn, but it was the only thing they had come up with to deal with the horn should the monster try to blow it. "Hit it with everything you got."

Responding to Ceres' instructions Iris and Fay launched a volley of attacks on the _Hornblower_. A steady barrage of arrows came from Iris while Fay and Ceres tried to get past the Minotaur's defenses. The looming threat of the incoming monsters was putting stress on the group as they attempted to kill the _Hornblower _in front of them before its allies could appear. This feeling of a time crunch caused them to mess up more than they would under normal conditions, their enemies HP was falling slowly and the sounds of hoofs on stone could be heard in the distance.

All of that was drowned out by the loud roar that echoed through the cavern. Pebbles danced on the ground as the owner of the roar approached the group. Even the _Hornblower _stopped fighting at the sound of the larger monster's cry, it seemed that the game had set it so even the monsters of the area feared the creature that had been left behind by the Dwarves. A purple mist gathered around the area as the Raid level monster drew closer.

"I think now would be a good time to run," Ciro pointed out as the mist got closer to Fay and Ceres. Both girls turned away from the approaching monster and started running, neither was stupid enough to try and fight something that was meant to be taken down by four full parties. A large figure blocked the light of the crystals on the ceiling, they had been found by the creature.

"Run faster!" Iris shouted at the others as she bolted away from the approaching figure.

"Iris, what is it?" Ceres called out to the small Cait Sith.

"It's a dragon, why are these things always dragons?" Wondering why a lot of the stronger monsters in video games seemed to be draconian in nature the curious girl looked at the monster to see the name of the beast. "Its called Fafnir and it has six health bars."

"What? That thing is only four stars, what's it doing with _six _health bars?" Ceres called out as she turned a corner to follow after the others. As they were running through the area they noticed that all of the Minotaur monsters they had to avoid on the way in were all missing.

"How about we get away from it and _then _wonder why its like the way it is?" Leaping over a pile of debris Ciro was moving as fast as he possibly could and still be able to maneuver the tight corners of the streets.

"Do we have any information on it other than its rank and health?" Trying to see what they'd be up against if they were corned Fay wanted to be ready to cast the necessary spells to help them escape.

"Dragon type monsters generally have a high magic resistance and either an immunity to a certain element or they outright absorb it. Weak spots include wings, underbelly, and joints." Holding her notebook in her hands while she ran Iris consulted what she had written down about the monster type. "Got nothing on Fafnir itself though."

"Wait, this game is based in Norse mythology right?" Ciro looked at the others as he waited for a response.

"Yeah but the parallels are too loose, for all we know they could have just borrowed the name of a dragon and there's no direct link to it."

"True, but the story of Fafnir states that it blows poison in front of it to weaken any opponents that dare to fight it."

"I see, the mist is the poison," Fay reasoned.

"So we know it can poison us, not very helpful if we get caught." Opening her menu as she ran Ceres did a double check of her skills to see if the ones she had would allow her to live long enough to escape should they need to. Being outfitted with high end equipment Ceres wouldn't die quickly against Fafnir, a Raid monster's strength wasn't always in its damage output but could be in its survivability that would prolong the fight beyond what a normal party could handle.

Taking another turn down a street the party ran into a group of Minotaur monsters. Judging by the vast amount of them they were getting ready to fight Fafnir. With the Minotaur army in front of them and a giant poison spewing dragon behind them the group was at a loss as to what they could do. None of them had teleport crystals and by the time Fay or Ciro got off a teleport spell they'd be long dead.

All of the _Minotaur Snipers _in the small army readied their bows and trained them on the approaching dragon. Purple mist flowed out from the streets behind Ceres and company and the poison symbol, three green water droplets, appeared under everyone's health bar. Fay cast the simple _Antidote _spell but the effect remained.

"It keeps poisoning us," Fay said as she tried a higher level spell that was to removed the "venom" effect, a stronger version of poison. Even still the effect just returned and their HP was dropping at a slow but steady pace. With her Battle Healing skill in effect Ceres was losing the least amount of HP as the negative loss wasn't enough to really impact her.

"We need anti-poison accessories," a ring appeared in Iris' hand as she changed her equipment to one with such an effect. The second she slipped on the ring the poisoned status was removed from underneath her HP bar. The others all looked at her with a worried expression, not a one of them had anything that could negate being poisoned. "If you… have them that is."

"I can hold it off for a little bit with _Refreshing Waltz _but the effects only last as long as I play and it's not an easy melody to play while running." With harp in hand Ciro started to strum the song and the negative effect on the party was removed but his MP was visibly dropping at a fast rate. "It removes most status ailments so the MP cost is high," he explained.

"We'll have to wait until the Minotaurs start fighting Fafnir so his attention is focused on them, then we can make a break for the exit, hopefully he'll open a path for us."

"Good idea Ceres." Iris' hand was quickly darting over her notebook as she was writing down the information on Fafnir that she had gotten from actually seeing the monster.

Completely ignoring the party the Minotaurs fired at the dragon, their arrows bouncing off more often than doing actual damage to Fafnir. Buildings broke as the angered dragon made its way to the attacking monsters. Lashing out with its front paw, Fafnir broke the ranks of the army in a matter of seconds. Seeing this as their chance to escape the party headed off to the side of the battle to try and skirt around them and make a break for the exit.

Dodging the attacks of both sides of the fight was more challenging than they had expected. A few of the Minotaurs spotted them and tried to pick a fight only to get struck down by Fafnir. While they ran they had to keep an eye on their HP and use potions to recover the damage they were taking by being in Fafnir's poison mist since Ciro couldn't keep his song going while in motion, not to mention his MP was near depletion.

Once they had to actually fight a group of three _Minotaur Gladiators _in order to keep going. The fight was short lived as both Ceres and Fay unleashed their strongest attacks on the monsters. Their joint attack on the first turned him into polygons in a matter of seconds and they split to deal with the remaining two. Ciro took the time to fish out a mana potion to restore his MP while Iris supported the two fighting, getting in a few shots to speed up the fighting. During Fay's skirmish with her opponent she dodge his attack and the sword went right through her wing, her HP was unaffected telling the group that even if her avatar had wings the system didn't recognize them as part of her body until she went to fly.

Reaching the edge of the battlefield the group turned around and looked at the carnage that Fafnir was creating. They could see his HP bars and the first one was just now reaching the halfway point, the Minotaurs just weren't able to do enough damage to him. If they focused on the bull headed monsters they could see their HP and only a few of them had any left above half.

"Iris, can you find and _Hornblowers _in the mix?" Ciro asked now that they were out of the poison mist.

"I can see a few," she answered lost as to why Ciro was asking.

"Find the one with the lowest health and shoot him." Taking her bow in hand Iris found one fitting Ciro's requirements and took aim at the monster. Her arrow missed the intended target by a few inches so she tried again and this time was able to hit its leg at least. Nothing happened but Ciro encouraged her to try again so she did, this time getting the arrow to hit exactly where she wanted, the chest. With only a little health left the _Hornblower _turned and charged at the archer. Without a second thought Iris let loose another arrow and destroyed the monster.

"Ceres," Ciro turned to his sister, "check the group inventory."

"I get it now!" Iris proclaimed having caught on to what Ciro had her do.

Since they were in a party even if Iris was the one who killed the _Hornblower _the quest item would appear in the party's inventory. There was only a chance of the item dropping but at their range they were currently safe from Fafnir and still able to pick off targets with magic or archery. Taking advantage of this they all started picking off _Hornblowers _until they got the quest item _Cloven Hoof_.

Safely heading back to town with the item in her inventory they went to turn in the quest so that Ceres could have it completed. The trek back down through the mountain was uneventful. They did meet another party heading up and warned them that Fafnir wasn't dead at the moment and currently killing all the normal monsters in the area.

When they reached the town where they had gotten the quest, a neutral city near the Gnome territory, they headed to the quest giver so Ceres could finally finish what they'd set out to do. Once the item was handed over and the quest completed they headed to the local shop to pick up the item that they'd unlocked. Buying a few Ceres wanted to see how well it would stack with her natural healing ability in the next fight, even a little more HP could mean the difference between life and death in a tight situation.

Having nothing better to do the group headed to the local inn to try some of the local cuisine and check the forums to see if anything new was out and running. There was nothing scheduled to be released but not all events were announced and there were still a few things hidden in the dungeons of ALO. The inn of the village was your standard small place fit with a few rooms on the second floor and a small common room where players could gather. More importantly though each inn had scrolls that acted as forum boards inside the game so players could check them without having to logout.

"See you guys are checking the boards," a large Gnome player approached the group and pointed to the scroll that Iris was glancing over. "Did you see the rumor about the monster on the 96th floor?"

"Not yet," Iris answered as she went through the section she was currently reading regarding the change of drop rates from monsters in the Leprechaun area.

"Well it seems that players aren't the only thing glitching nowadays." The Gnome pulled up a chair and plopped down to converse with the group, the chair groaned under his weight. "A few people have claimed that there's a group of monsters up in Aincrad that no matter what you do to them they don't lose any HP. The strange thing is that they're just common monsters that were hunted normally less than a week ago."

"Please," Ceres scoffed, "it was probably a bunch of new players thinking they could jump right to the top floors since there's no level system here." That was the problem with new players, they thought that since their characters didn't have any level they could take on anything without worry. What they didn't realize that they'd need good equipment and high skill levels to be able to damage the monsters enough to stand a chance.

"Says the girl that's in a GS avatar while playing ALO." Rolling her eyes Ceres went back to eating the meal she'd ordered, ignoring what else the guy had to say. "Point is that with all these out of place avatars whose to say that the system ain't going to hell and monsters can be unkillable now?"

"My sister makes a point though," Ciro picked up the conversation seeing that Ceres wasn't going to keep talking. "Our avatars might be from the wrong game but our skills and equipment all working according to the rules of ALO. Even if Fay gets a sword through her wings she doesn't take damage because the system doesn't recognize they're there. It's a far cry from a monster with infinite HP."

"A couple of my buddies are going up to the 96th floor to investigate the matter. We plan to take a video of the fight and figure out if this is a rumor or a real glitch." Getting up from the table the Gnome waved good bye before heading out the door.

"Monsters with infinite HP can't be real," Ceres stated once they were alone in the inn again.

"I don't know, I mean with the virus going around maybe it's leaked into the games and is causing changes like that?" Ciro replied trying to think up a reason why such a thing would exist.

"He did make a good point when he talked about our avatars," Fay added. "If we, with all our security against viruses, can be infected it's not a stretch to think that the games themselves could start having problems."

"So you two think that the same thing that's causing us problems has moved into the games, how? The Withered Virus targets players in a Jump status. Last I checked a game couldn't Jump."

"But Ceres," still going through the scroll Iris spoke up, "Uncle Sol, Mother, and _all _of Rath don't know the full effects of the virus. For all we know it could be part of the virus' programming to cause problems in the games."

"You three believe what you want, I'll wait for that video to see if there's any truth to the matter or not." Fed up with her family ganging up on her Ceres went silent and looked out the window of the inn, arms folded over her chest in anger.

-o-O-o-

_**May 6, 2096**_

Heading through the main labyrinth of the 96th floor the party was outfitted in their best gear to insure their survival. Ciro had managed to get a hold of three friends that were willing to party with them as they headed through the dungeon to investigate the infinite HP monster. One of them was a Spriggan with a katana weapon that specialized in close combat. The other two were Sylphs with rapiers that did well with both magic and rapiers but hadn't trained their defensive skills so they relied solely on their speed and allies to keep them alive. One of the Slyphs had an avatar from Gun Gale Online, fully outfitted in the camouflage outfit of the game with ALO armor over top.

Like the Gnome had told them the other day, he and his group of friends and gone to investigate the rumor of the unkillable monster. It had taken them some time to explore the dungeon before finding the rumored monster and filming a video of the fight with one of the games crystals. They had posted the video yesterday and now the community was in an uproar about the creature, trying to figure out what was happening to the game that such a thing could exist within the system and not have been dealt with already. Those who weren't complaining about the unkillable monster were trying their luck at killing it, in twenty-four hours not a single party had been able to inflict so much as one HP of damage on it.

Ceres had been against inviting other players to come along to investigate but had been talked into it when she was reminded that up this high in Aincrad the majority of the monsters they'd run into were Party or higher in strength, they'd need the other three if they safely wanted to make it to the location of the glitched monster. There was tension in the air as they walked the dungeon as Ciro's friends knew that Ceres didn't want them around.

"So what's the plan for when we fight this things?" The Spriggan named SacredChief asked.

"Well you and Ceres will keep its attention while Deception and Serre dart in and out with their rapiers," Ciro answered consulting the info on the monster that Iris had gathered from people and the from the video. "Fay and myself will stand back providing support as we see fit with Fay doing the lion's share of the healing of course. Iris will be our lookout making sure that nothing else is going to attack us and firing off shots when she sees an opening, going for the monster's normal weak spots."

"Sounds good to me," SacredChief patted Ciro on the back as they walked. "Beside we have a beautiful angel on our team, what can go wrong?" Laughing at his joke the Spriggan glanced over at Fay who had turned a deep shade a red. Leaning close to Ciro, ScaredChief whispered so that the others wouldn't hear him. "But seriously dude, I thought we were friends, why didn't you tell me you knew such beauties? From the way you talk with the angel chick you gotta know her e-mail, don't hold out on me now."

"Please, a guy like Ciro isn't going to give a lech like you any girl's e-mail," Deception, the Slyph that was in a normal ALO avatar said.

"How'd you hear that, I made sure that I was speaking low enough that others couldn't hear." Having been caught SacredChief looked worried.

"True, but you forgot to turn off battle chat so your voice was amplified so we could all hear it. Plus I've worked on my Listening skill, even if you were whispering I would have picked it up." Battle chat was an assist from the game that allowed party members to hear each other even at a great distance so that they could actively fight in a wide area, as needed against some of the larger monsters, without missing commands from their allies.

"Besides," Iris chimed in having heard the conversation, "if you want my sister's e-mail it'd be better to ask her yourself." Fay turned pale at her sister's words and looked away from SacredChief. "It'd give her some practice in shooting guys down after all." Giggling Iris headed over to Fay to comfort the girl while SacredChief processed what the little wolf Cait Sith had said to him.

Passing the time traveling through the dungeon talking about some of the things they had done in the game the group of seven made their way to the section of the labyrinth that was the home of their target. The monster in that had been effected was a snake monster called _Terrafang_. It was twelve feet from nose to tail covered in brown scales with a dark blue underbelly. Three green feathers stuck out from either side of its head and the tip of its tail was covered in the same feathers. Only a few days ago it had been a normal monster that was weak to water magic, had high physical defense and was extremely fast. Aside from the weakness to water magic, it was still fought the same as it did before.

Finally reaching the location of the _Terrafang _the party found another group of seven already engaged in a fight with the monster. Each member of the party was of the Leprechaun race and from the looks of things they weren't having any more luck than the previous groups. They were easily identified as Leprechauns by their silver hair and grey themed outfits. As the blacksmith fairy race they were all sporting weapons and armor of their own creation as they fought against the snake, no doubt they had crafted the items to give them an edge in the fight, such was the general mentality of those that played as Leprechauns.

The _Terrafang _was lashing out with its fangs biting into the forged armor of the lead Leprechaun covered in the thickest armor. Not only attacking with its fangs the _Terrafang _swung its mighty tail at those that got too close to it before it'd dart away using its speed to move to a better striking position. Judging by the fact that only two members of the party wore robes they only had two mage styled fighters to slow down the _Terrafang. _As the group watched the Leprechauns fight they kept looking at the green HP bar of the monster and whenever it was hit the bar didn't show an loss of health, it truly appeared to be an unkillable monster.

"Shall we help them?" Serre asked the party while they watched the health of the Leprechauns slowly deteriorate.

"If they start to retreat we'll jump in and take over but until then this is their fight," Ceres told the GGO Sylph. It was common courtesy in VRMMOs to let the other party do what they could before coming in and fighting a monster they had weakened. If they were clearly retreating from the fight then it was fine to jump in and take over.

Not a single member of the Leprechauns chose to flee the fight. Each and every one of them kept attacking the _Terrafang _until their own HP fell to zero. They sat there as Remain Lights until the revival counter ended and then they'd be sent back to the main Leprechaun city with a drop in their skill levels.

A little nervous about fighting this monster that didn't lose HP the gang readied themselves for what seemed like an impossible fight. Fay and Ciro buffed the party as best they could while Iris added a few buffs to Masir to turn her pet into a fighting machine to be reckoned with. Looking at each other for reassurance the group steeled themselves before charging to fight the infinite HP _Terrafang. _


End file.
